Artificial intelligence as a director: the pursuit of personalized narrative experiences in Horror Games

This article examines the role of artificial intelligence (AI) as a narrative director in horror video games, focusing on its capacity to produce personalized emotional experiences. The study explores how AI-driven adaptive systems can modulate narrative structures and gameplay dynamics in response to players’ individual fears, thereby enhancing immersion, agency, and affective resonance. A mixed-methods approach was adopted, combining a literature review on AI-based adaptive narrative systems with a survey administered to regular players from the Multimedia Engineering program at Universidad Militar Nueva Granada. The instrument explored participants’ perceptions of fear, immersion, and adaptation in widely recognized horror titles such as Resident Evil, Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, Alien: Isolation, and Left 4 Dead. Findings reveal a significant correlation between players’ perceived fear levels and the degree of alignment between game themes, mechanics, and atmospheres with their personal fears. Participants also expressed strong support for the implementation of AI directors capable of adjusting the gaming experience and intensifying fear responses. Overall, the results suggest that the integration of adaptive AI directors constitutes a meaningful contribution to the development of more personalized interactive experiences and represents an important advancement in the motional and narrative design of contemporary horror video games.