Our first peek at WarGames—Her Story creator Sam Barlow's next project—in December was not particularly revealing: we found out that it's an interactive series re-imagining the 1983 film of the same name, but that was about it. Now we know that, in Barlow's own words, it's a "choice-based story without choices" that plays out across a number of different viewpoints.
In Her Story you decided which video clips to watch, and in what order, piecing together the murder mystery story at your own pace. WarGames, a story about a group of hackers trying to better society, is more hands-off and the only decision you make is which perspective to view it from.
Basically, the story is constantly moving forward, and at any point you'll have multiple video feeds to choose from. You can try to watch them all on screen at once or focus your attention on a particular feed. Based on which one you choose, the story will change. “[It's] a way of gauging your interest, gauging your opinion about the show. And those would be your choices, and then we would use that to steer the story," Barlow told The Verge.
The story will release in episodes of a set length. He says the main purpose of the approach is to make the viewer feel like they're "hanging out online" with the characters.
“The guiding feeling that we wanted to have here was the sense that you were hanging out with these people. Most of the content is the kids hanging out online and chatting. Really I wanted to feel like you were just one other person hanging out online with these kids."
Some people might not like the fact that it's more passive than Her Story, but I have high hopes. Her Story had fantastic writing, and if Barlow can do the same here then we'll be in for a treat. He's creating WarGames in collaboration with Eko, an interactive video studio. You can sample some of their work here.
WarGames is due out later this year, and Barlow is also working on "spiritual follow-up" to Her Story called Telling Lies.
