Introduction

This chapter presents an introduction to the book Virtual Reality Narratives: Embodied Encounters in Space, which identifies and explores the narrative qualities and experience of twenty-first century, entertainment-based virtual reality. It argues that as an inherently interactive medium that places the user inside a storyworld in a visible or invisible virtual body, virtual reality offers a means for the creation of narratives that incorporate the user’s body as a storytelling tool, fostering user-centred stories that unfold in representations of three-dimensional space. The chapter begins by charting developments in VR storytelling over the last decade, noting new technologies and trends for the production and distribution of projects. It then explores the use of the term ‘narrative’ in various medium and disciplinary contexts: film, games, theatre and interactive digital narrative (IDN). This exploration begins to draw out narrative theories and discussions related to VR’s antecedents, which can be used to shed light on the specificity of contemporary VR as a narrative medium.