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<p>Can play create meaning without the aid of symbolic language? In other words, does “ludology” contain its own “narratology”? This paper aims to answer these questions by identifying a narrative structure unique to video games—one that cannot exist apart from play itself or be transposed onto other media. It argues that games can tell stories through their mechanisms, generating immediate somatic and emotional experiences even in the absence of symbolic language. Through two case studies—Freud’s fort-da game and FromSoftware’s <i>Dark Souls</i> (2011)—I contend that both narrate humanity’s death drive through a highly repetitive yet perpetually compelling structure that links life and death, language and the ineffable, symbolic logic and unsatisfiable desire. Drawing on Freud, Lacan, and Žižek, this paper reveals the stories games tell beyond traditional narrative models and beyond the symbolic order.</p>

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Storytelling beyond the symbolic order: repetition and the death drive in Dark Souls

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2026年7月9日

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  • Jan Cao

摘要

Can play create meaning without the aid of symbolic language? In other words, does “ludology” contain its own “narratology”? This paper aims to answer these questions by identifying a narrative structure unique to video games—one that cannot exist apart from play itself or be transposed onto other media. It argues that games can tell stories through their mechanisms, generating immediate somatic and emotional experiences even in the absence of symbolic language. Through two case studies—Freud’s fort-da game and FromSoftware’s Dark Souls (2011)—I contend that both narrate humanity’s death drive through a highly repetitive yet perpetually compelling structure that links life and death, language and the ineffable, symbolic logic and unsatisfiable desire. Drawing on Freud, Lacan, and Žižek, this paper reveals the stories games tell beyond traditional narrative models and beyond the symbolic order.