Worldbuilding has traditionally been a top-down process of defining a world before adding characters and events, but digital media operates on object-oriented logic treating game worlds as interacting entities with defined properties and relationships.
Object-oriented worldbuilding shifts from creating passive backdrops to modular, dynamic worlds where interactions drive meaning.
This approach prioritizes relationships over fixed authorship, leading to player-driven experiences and the design of interactive systems.
Object-oriented design in digital spaces blurs the line between foreground and background, using modular elements to create dynamic environments.
It redistributes narrative significance away from scripted events towards emergent, systemic interactions, resulting in nonlinear, relational storytelling.
The future of digital spaces may involve AI-driven generation, proceduralism, and interconnected virtual environments under object-oriented logic.
AI-driven proceduralism could lead to unique world instances and shift worldbuilding towards curation over authorship.
Cross-platform digital objects may create persistent entities across multiple environments, changing how we perceive digital worlds.
Object-oriented worldbuilding may give rise to recurring motifs, symbols, and myths through consistent appearances of objects and systems in various environments.
Worlds may no longer be authored but grown, observed, and interpreted, emphasizing emergent storytelling.