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Narrative and Challenge in Single-Player RPGs: A 1990–2025 Player-Centered Systematic Review
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Orientador(es)
Resumo(s)
Single-player role-playing games (RPGs) combine two promises that do not always align:
delivering a compelling narrative experience (world, characters, choices, and consequences)
while sustaining a demanding ludic trajectory in which players face obstacles, master systems, and progress over time. This Systematic Literature Review (SLR) synthesizes existing
evidence on the evolution of narrative and challenge in single-player RPGs from a playercentered perspective, with particular attention paid to immersion, engagement, flow, and
perceived agency. A multi-database search strategy was conducted across Google Scholar,
Scopus, IEEE Xplore, and the ACM Digital Library using query strings targeting narrative/agency, challenge and dynamic difficulty adjustment (DDA), adaptive difficulty,
and the historical evolution of RPG narrative design, following a Preferred Reporting
Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA)-reported selection flow and
Rayyan-supported screening. From 423 identified records, duplicates and non-eligible
records were removed through staged screening, yielding 43 reports sought for retrieval;
because six were not accessible in full text at consolidation, the synthesis was conducted
on 37 full-text articles. The findings indicate (i) a predominance of work on narrative
and agency, where agency is framed as a design effect rather than merely the presence of
explicit branching choices; (ii) a recent rise in challenge/adaptation research, frequently
tied to flow, fairness, and differentiated player profiles; and (iii) the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI)-driven approaches, including non-player character (NPC) systems,
combat AI, reinforcement learning, and large language model (LLM)-based narrative control, which amplify core design trade-offs between narrative coherence and perceived
agency. Beyond synthesizing a dispersed body of literature, the review contributes an
integrated player-centered analytical framework that brings together narrative, challenge,
and player experience, while also highlighting the need for more consistent measurement
practices, stronger comparative designs, and longer-term empirical work in single-player
RPG research
Descrição
Palavras-chave
single-player RPG narrative player agency challenge adaptive difficulty DDA player experience game AI
Contexto Educativo
Citação
antunes, J. ; Carvalho, V. & Domingues, J.M. (2026). Narrative and Challenge in Single-Player RPGs: A 1990–2025 Player-Centered Systematic Review..Digital 2026, 6, 33. https://doi.org/10.3390/digital6020033