The Importance of Ludonarrative Design in Improving Women’s Representation in Videogames: A Comparative Ludonarratological Analysis of the Hero’s Journey in Final Fantasy 13 and Final Fantasy 15

Abstract

In 2009, popular game company Square Enix (SE) announced Final Fantasy’s (FF) first femaleled videogame. The game is Final Fantasy 13 (FF13). Its game director, Motomu Toriyama boasts how FF13’s heroine, Lightning, presents a different type of appeal than that of the usual hypersexualised women characters seen in videogames. While we can consider that this is a step forward for better representation in the medium, better representation should not stop at desexualising character designs. Instead, developers must be cognizant of how the game’s ludonarrative design can affect the portrayal of female characters. Ludonarrative design combines game/ludic elements with narrative aspects to shape the player’s experience. In this paper, we analyse the ludonarrative design of two FF games, one of which is female-led (see: FF13) and the other is male-led (see: Final Fantasy 15). We contend that there is gendered treatment in FF13’s ludonarrative design. In order to validate this argument, we analyse the correlation between the game avatar function (ludic feature) with the number of monomyth tropes (narrative feature) present and how they affect our perception of Lightning as the hero.