Interactive Storytelling: How It Is Changing Hollywood
Interactive storytelling is any narrative experience in which an audience member’s input affects how they encounter the story.
That participation can take several forms:
- Choosing what a character does next
- Determining which character or perspective to follow
- Exploring scenes in a self-selected order
- Voting collectively on a story outcome
- Talking directly to fictional characters
- Unlocking optional scenes or background information
- Influencing future installments through audience response
The amount of control can vary considerably. Some projects contain dozens of alternate endings. Others give viewers control over a character’s attitude or relationships while preserving the same main plot. A story can also feel interactive without changing its ending at all.
The First Interactive Film Experiments
Although Black Mirror: Bandersnatch introduced many viewers to interactive movies, the basic idea is much older than streaming.
At Expo 67 in Montreal, Czech filmmaker Radúz Činčera presented Kinoautomat: One Man and His House (1967). During the screening, the movie stopped several times so a moderator could ask the audience to vote on what the protagonist should do next.
The Czech National Film Archive describes it as the world’s first interactive film project built around direct participation between an audience and filmmakers.
There was a catch: the branches repeatedly converged. No matter what the audience selected, the film eventually returned viewers to the same narrative track.
That was partly a production solution. A truly branching film would require an enormous number of scenes. By bringing different choices back together, Činčera could create the feeling of participation without filming a nearly infinite movie.
It also became part of the point. The audience was offered control, but the filmmaker still determined every available option and destination. More than fifty years later, writers of interactive stories are still dealing with the same problem: How do you offer meaningful agency without losing dramatic structure?
To understand how to keep agency in writing interactive stories without losing dramatic structure, we need to look at how video games changed storytelling.
How Video Games Changed Storytelling
Interactive cinema remained an experiment, but video games gave the concept a natural home. The 1983 arcade game Dragon’s Lair used LaserDisc technology and animation from Don Bluth’s studio to make players feel as though they had entered a feature-quality cartoon.
Players responded to visual situations by pressing a button or moving a joystick at the right moment. A correct decision continued the adventure. A mistake usually produced one of the game’s many elaborate death scenes.
The Strong National Museum of Play credits the game’s LaserDisc technology with creating cinematic graphics and audio that stood apart from other arcade games of the era.
By modern standards, the player’s control was limited. However, the basic appeal was already clear: You were not simply watching an animated adventure. Your participation determined whether the hero survived it.
As technology developed, games such as Mass Effect, Heavy Rain, Until Dawn, and Detroit: Become Human built entire dramatic experiences around moral decisions, relationships, and character survival. A choice made during the first hour might not reveal its consequences until much later. Characters could remember how they had been treated. Alliances could shift. A trusted companion might survive in one player’s version and die in another’s.
Telltale Games’ 2012 adaptation of The Walking Dead became a particularly important bridge between television and games. The game was released episodically, with each chapter structured like an installment of serialized television. Players controlled Lee Everett, a convicted criminal protecting a young girl named Clementine during a zombie apocalypse. Players made timed dialogue choices, decided whom to trust, and occasionally chose which characters to save.
Not every decision produced an entirely different plot. Different paths frequently returned players to the same major story beats. What changed was Lee’s relationship with the people around him—and the kind of person the player believed him to be.
One version of Lee might become a compassionate protector. Another might become a pragmatic survivor willing to sacrifice almost anyone. Both versions could reach the same external destination, but they did not arrive as the same person.
The series demonstrated that interactive storytelling does not always require twenty endings. Sometimes, agency means allowing viewers to define the emotional meaning of a fixed plot.
The episodic format also allowed Telltale to observe audience choices and reactions while later chapters were still being developed. In some cases, the company adjusted future material based on unexpected player responses.
How Hollywood Experimented With Interactive Movies
As smartphones and streaming became central to entertainment, filmmakers began exploring participation outside traditional video games. Steven Soderbergh’s Mosaic was released as an app in 2017 before being re-edited into a conventional HBO miniseries. The murder mystery did not primarily ask viewers to alter the outcome. Instead, users could choose which characters to follow and the order in which they encountered parts of the investigation.
That structure required more than seven hours of footage and a screenplay exceeding 500 pages. Every revelation had to be placed carefully so viewers would not receive essential information too early—or encounter a major event before understanding the characters involved.
Mosaic demonstrated that a project could be interactive without presenting a constant series of red-door-or-blue-door decisions. The interaction could come from choosing whose version of the truth to believe.
In 2018, Netflix brought branching storytelling to a large streaming audience with Black Mirror: Bandersnatch. The film follows Stefan, a programmer adapting a choose-your-own-adventure novel into a video game. Viewers make decisions on his behalf, beginning with mundane choices and escalating toward increasingly disturbing actions.
What made Bandersnatch effective was that its format was not simply attached to the story. Control was the story. As viewers made more choices, Stefan began to suspect that an outside force was manipulating him. Eventually, the audience’s ability to control the protagonist became part of the horror. The viewer was not merely selecting scenes. The viewer was a voyeur in Stefan’s psychological breakdown.
A branching format should not be attached to an ordinary screenplay simply because the technology exists. The choices should reveal something about the character, the world, or the audience’s role in the experience.
Netflix continued experimenting with projects including You vs. Wild, which let viewers guide Bear Grylls through survival challenges, and Choose Love, a romantic comedy that allowed the audience to determine the protagonist’s career and romantic decisions.
For a while, interactive streaming appeared poised to become its own entertainment category.
Then Netflix changed direction.
Why Netflix Stepped Away
Netflix removed most of its interactive catalog in December 2024. Its final two major interactive specials, Black Mirror: Bandersnatch and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy vs. the Reverend, left the service on May 12, 2025.
A spokesperson said the technology had “served its purpose” but had become limiting as Netflix shifted its technical resources elsewhere.
Branching stories are expensive and complicated. Every path may require additional writing, filming, editing, scoring, effects, localization, testing, and technical support—often for scenes many viewers will never see. The experience must also function across televisions, computers, phones, consoles, and streaming devices.
There is an even simpler obstacle: viewers do not always want to make decisions. Part of television’s appeal is pressing play and letting someone else guide the experience; repeated prompts can interrupt momentum and make relaxation feel like work.
Netflix’s retreat did not prove that audiences dislike participation. It suggested that a feature-length branching movie may not be the easiest or most sustainable way to deliver it.
How Interactive Design Influences Film and Television
Even when a film or series has a fixed ending, techniques associated with games are already reshaping mainstream entertainment. In a traditional action movie, the spectacle might be a car chase or an explosion. In an interactive story, the spectacle can be the moment a character must decide whom to trust, which truth to reveal, or who deserves to be saved.
Transmedia campaigns have also become increasingly prominent, using games and other digital extensions to draw audiences deeper into a story world. Yet fully interactive films and television series have often proved too expensive and complicated for platforms such as Netflix to sustain. The influence of gaming has therefore emerged less through elaborate branching narratives than through the habits audiences have developed around screens: tapping, swiping, making rapid choices, and consuming entertainment in short bursts on their phones.
Those same habits have helped create the ideal audience for microdramas.
Why Vertical Microdramas Could Be Next
Vertical microdramas are particularly suited to active, mobile audiences. Designed for phones held upright, these serialized stories usually consist of episodes lasting one to three minutes. They often emphasize romance, revenge, betrayal, crime, secret identities, and frequent cliffhangers.
The first installments are generally free. Viewers then pay or subscribe to unlock later episodes.
The format became a major business in China before attracting increased investment from American entertainment companies. Peacock has introduced a dedicated microdrama hub, Fox Entertainment has invested in vertical production, and companies connected to Issa Rae, Kevin Hart, and Kim Kardashian have entered the market.
Omdia projected that global microdrama revenue would reach approximately $14 billion by the end of 2026.
Most vertical dramas remain linear. However, interactive verticals have already entered the market. ReelShort now features “interactive verticals,” including the LGBTQ+ sports romance Waterboy and its sequel, Waterboy: Second Down.
Writers interested in the format can also read InkTip’s guide to writing for vertical video scripts, which explains the structure, pacing, and production realities of mobile-first episodes.
Vertical drama is not a direct descendant of Bandersnatch. It is part of a broader shift toward entertainment that assumes the audience will remain active.
What Screenwriters Can Learn From Interactive Stories
Writers do not need to be developing a video game to benefit from interactive techniques.
1. Make Every Choice Reveal Character
The most interesting decision is rarely “go left” or “go right.”
A stronger choice is:
- Protect yourself or protect someone else
- Tell the truth or preserve a relationship
- Accept power or expose corruption
- Follow the rules or save a life
A meaningful choice forces a character—or player—to reveal a value.
2. Separate Plot Changes From Emotional Changes
Not every decision needs to create an entirely different third act.
A choice can instead alter:
A relationship
A character’s reputation
The audience’s interpretation of an event
The protagonist’s emotional journey
The information available in a later scene
This makes branching structures easier to manage without making the choices feel meaningless.
3. Build a Strong Character Bible
Interactive characters must remain recognizable across many possible conversations and decisions.
Writers should know:
- What the character wants
- What the character fears
- What the character refuses to discuss
- What the character would never do
- What information the character possesses
- How the character behaves under pressure
A detailed character bible protects consistency even when the audience approaches the character from an unexpected direction.
4. Outline Before Writing
Branching stories become complicated quickly. Writers need to track which information the audience has received, which characters are alive, and which decisions affect later scenes.
Flowcharts, index cards, spreadsheets, or specialized narrative-design software can help writers see where branches separate and where they rejoin.
InkTip’s guide to outlining your screenplay offers a useful starting point for organizing objectives, character motivations, and story beats before drafting.
What the Trend Means for Working Screenwriters
Interactive and mobile-first formats may create new opportunities for writers who understand both traditional structure and narrative systems.
Future assignments could involve:
- Designing branch maps
- Developing world and mythology documents
- Defining canon and non-canon experiences
- Writing episodes for both horizontal and vertical presentation
- Creating hooks and cliffhangers for very short episodes
Writers will also need to explain these concepts clearly when pitching.
A producer must understand not only the premise, but why the story needs interaction and how that interaction can be produced affordably. A polished logline, synopsis, and project description will remain essential.
When a project is ready to reach producers, InkTip’s guide to making a script listing attractive to producers offers practical advice on presenting the material clearly.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is interactive storytelling?
Interactive storytelling allows an audience member’s decisions or input to affect how they experience a narrative. That may include changing the plot, selecting a perspective, exploring scenes in a different order, or interacting directly with fictional characters.
Do interactive stories need multiple endings?
No. A project can preserve the same main ending while allowing audiences to change relationships, character behavior, scene order, or the information they receive.
The choices must feel meaningful, but they do not all need to create completely separate plots.
Are vertical microdramas interactive?
Most vertical microdramas are not interactive in the traditional sense. Viewers generally cannot alter their plots.
However, vertical platforms are built around active behaviors such as swiping, commenting, sharing, purchasing episodes, and providing immediate feedback. Some projects are also experimenting with optional character conversations, fictional archives, and other forms of direct participation.
Why did Netflix stop producing interactive movies?
Branching movies require additional writing, filming, editing, localization, and technical support. They also need to function across many different devices.
Netflix said its interactive technology had become limiting as the company shifted toward other initiatives, and its final major interactive specials were removed in May 2025.
What skills do interactive writers need?
Interactive writers need traditional storytelling skills alongside strong organization, worldbuilding, character development, and an ability to track multiple narrative states.
They must also understand how each choice affects the audience emotionally—not only how it changes the plot.
Thomas Blakeley is a screenwriter, playwright, and musical theatre bookwriter based out of Los Angeles and New York City. A graduate of NYU's Graduate Musical Theater Writing Program, he is passionate about the arts, social justice, and all things nerdy. He can usually be found scouring the horror section of a local bookstore.
