"This is the story of a man called Stanley": Narrativity and Freedom in Video Games and Beyond. The Case of The Stanley Parable

This article explores the interplay between narrativity and player agency in the video game The Stanley Parable (2013). Through a communication-theoretical and theological lens, the paper investigates how the game challenges conventional notions of freedom in video games and beyond. Analyzing three endings, the article reveals how the narrator-player dynamic subverts narrative authority and simulates choice. Theologically, The Stanley Parable is read as a graceless parable, resonating with Kafka’s Ein Bericht für eine Akademie and Augustine’s anthropology. The game’s recursive structure critiques autonomy as mimicked freedom, exposing the existential and theological limits of human agency.