Halo: Combat Evolved and the Monomyth : A Narrative Analysis

Sammanfattning

This thesis investigates how Halo: Combat Evolved (Bungie Studios, 2001) employs the Hero’s Journey to structure its narrative and how it aligns with or diverges from Joseph Campbell’s Monomyth and Christopher Vogler’s twelve-stage adaptation. Using a humanist, close reading approach, the study analyzes the game as a text, examining both cinematic and interactive elements, including cutscenes, dialogue, level design, and core gameplay mechanics. It explores how these elements contribute to worldbuilding, player immersion, and the enactment of the hero’s journey, while highlighting the role of character archetypes in shaping narrative experience. By situating Halo within classical mythic frameworks, this research demonstrates how traditional storytelling principles can be adapted to interactive media and provides insights for scholars and designers interested in narrative design, ludonarrative theory, and the integration of story and gameplay in contemporary video games.