🎮 📽️ 📺 📖 How to Design a Multi-Tiered Storytelling Strategy That Grows Your Game IP
Not all stories are created equal. And not all mediums should serve the same function.
Yet too often, transmedia projects treat every format like a dumping ground for the same story. The result? Scattered narratives that fail to reinforce the core game experience. Instead of deepening engagement, these projects dilute impact—confusing audiences, fragmenting fan interest, and stalling growth.
Great gaming franchises don’t just expand across different formats—they assign each medium a distinct function in their transmedia growth strategy. For example, here's a potential framework:
🎮 Games immerse players in a world, giving them agency to enact power fantasies.
🎬 Movies introduce global audiences to core ideas and characters.
📺 TV explores deeper emotional arcs and interpersonal drama.
📖 Books & Comics flesh out hidden histories and untold events.
This is Medium Mapping, a Multi-Tiered Storytelling approach that ensures every extension serves a specific purpose. And for Game-based IPs, every transmedia expansion—Film, TV, Animation, Books—should support the core Game experience rather than compete with it.
🎮 Gaming Transmedia: Making Every Medium Work for the Core Game Experience
At the heart of this strategy is a key assumption: the game is the foundation of the IP—the economic and creative anchor of the transmedia ecosystem.
Take The Witcher. What began as a novel series became a genre-defining RPG franchise. Each new game deepened the experience, allowing players to shape Geralt’s journey while exploring the world’s deep political and mythological conflicts. This layered worldbuilding made The Witcher an ideal IP for transmedia expansion.
From live-action adaptations like Netflix’s The Witcher (2019-) to animated films like Nightmare of the Wolf (2021) and the prequel series Blood Origin (2022), every extension adds depth to the universe, keeping the world alive between major game releases. But no matter the medium, the goal remains the same: to expand The Witcher’s legend while reinforcing engagement with the franchise’s gaming roots.
👀 High-Funnel Awareness
Not everyone is going to jump straight into a game. Some audiences need a narrative on-ramp—something that introduces them to the world before they commit to becoming a player. That’s where high-funnel awareness expressions like Feature Films come in.
📽️ Feature Films: Defining the Universe for a Global Audience
Movies work best when they provide event-level storytelling—big, cinematic moments that (re)shape the IP’s status quo. A feature film could function to (re)introduce the IP to a global audience, distilling its core themes, characters, and conflicts into a self-contained, high-stakes narrative that ideally stokes curiosity and drives audiences to the game.
Nintendo executed this brilliantly with The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023). This wasn’t just a nostalgia play—it was a reintroduction, a way to make Mario feel fresh for a new generation. The film grossed $1.36 billion globally, making it the highest-grossing video game adaptation of all time, and worked in tandem with Nintendo’s theme park expansions in Japan and the U.S., turning Mario into a full-fledged entertainment ecosystem.
🌍🔮 Deepening the World
A great Game introduces players to a world—but a truly expansive franchise gives them reasons to stay invested beyond the core experience. While high-funnel content like Films brings in new audiences, deeper storytelling layers like TV series, Novels, and Comics reward long-term fans by expanding the universe, enriching characters, and exploring untold histories. These mediums don’t just support the game’s worldbuilding—they make the IP feel alive even when players aren’t actively in-game.
📺 TV & Streaming: Character-Driven Storytelling That Sustains Engagement
While TV can generate mainstream attention like films, its true strength lies in depth—unlike films, which deliver high-impact, event-driven spectacle, streaming TV offers extended time to explore character relationships, build lore, and immerse audiences in the world.
For example, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners (2022) did more for Cyberpunk 2077 than any marketing campaign could. The anime’s explosive popularity on Netflix contributed to the third best quarter in CD Projekt Red’s history, proving that transmedia isn’t just about brand awareness—it can reactivate an audience and drive them back into the core experience at scale.
📖 Manga, Comics & Novels: Deepening the Lore for Hardcore Fans
Comics and novels may not have the mass appeal of films or TV, but they excel at expanding lore, exploring backstories, and deepening audience investment. Books and comics allow for a slower, more detailed exploration of character motivations and historical events that reward deeper engagement while also creating foundational content that can later fuel adaptations.
Take The Witcher. Originally a novel series, its rich worldbuilding and deep character arcs became the foundation for CD Projekt Red’s hit games. The success of the games, in turn, reignited interest in the books, creating a cyclical engagement loop that fueled Netflix’s later adaptation. Similarly, Demon Slayer’s manga provided a structured roadmap for its anime, ensuring the adaptation retained the emotional depth and narrative strength that made the story compelling in the first place.
For gaming IPs, comics and novels aren’t just extra content—they keep fans engaged between releases while laying the groundwork for future transmedia expansion.
🚪👋 Lower-Friction, High-Engagement Entry Points
Not every medium needs to tell a massive, overarching story—some formats work best as low-friction, easy-access entry points that introduce new fans to the IP with minimal commitment. Mobile games, Webtoons, Audio Dramas, and Music Videos excel at introducing key themes, characters, and aesthetics in bite-sized formats.
📱Mobile & Third-Party Games
Blizzard used this strategy effectively with Diablo Immortal (2022), which generated $525 million in revenue within its first year—once again proving that a well-executed mobile expansion can be financially significant. Meanwhile, Riot Forge’s Mageseeker (2023) allowed fans to experience the League of Legends universe in a single-player, narrative-driven format, complementing the core MOBA rather than competing with it.
🎵 🗯️ Webtoons, Audio Dramas, & Music
Some of the most effective low-friction storytelling tools are passive, easily shareable formats like Webtoons, Audio Dramas, and Music Videos that reinforce an IP’s identity while subtly pulling audiences deeper into the world.
Halo mastered this approach with Audio Dramas that fleshed out Spartan backstories, offering deeper immersive, in-universe storytelling for lore-hungry fans that kept them engaged outside of traditional gameplay.
Riot Games took this even further with K/DA, its virtual K-pop group featuring League of Legends champions. Their 2018 debut single, POP/STARS, racked up over 600 million views on YouTube, proving that music can be a powerful transmedia tool. The music videos gave non-players an entry point into the League universe, many of whom later explored the IP out of curiosity.
The key takeaway? These low-friction formats don’t replace the core game experience—they enhance it by keeping the IP top of mind in everyday life. Whether through a song stuck in someone’s head, a quick mobile session during a commute, or a Webtoon that introduces characters in a digestible format, these touchpoints gradually build affinity and long-term engagement.
🌱 📈 Brand Extensions
Great franchises don’t just tell stories—they become part of their fans’ identities and turn fandom into a lifestyle.
Brand Extensions aren’t just about selling products—they’re about deepening emotional connection by giving fans different ways to express their love for an IP. Whether through wearable fandom like apparel or through crossover partnerships that introduce the IP to new audiences, these extensions reinforce brand love and drive long-term engagement.
🛍️ Consumer Products & Merch: Validating Fandom in Everyday Life
Some of the best Gaming IPs integrate fashion and collectibles into the broader cultural landscape, ensuring that their aesthetics feel relevant both inside and outside of the gaming community.
Square Enix executed this brilliantly with the Final Fantasy Uniqlo collection, which transformed one of gaming’s most beloved franchises into wearable street fashion. The collaboration leaned into sleek, stylish designs featuring art by the legendary Yoshitaka Amano that appealed to both hardcore fans and casual consumers alike. The result? Final Fantasy’s aesthetic became part of mainstream fashion, subtly reinforcing its presence in everyday life.
🔗 Brand Partnerships: Expanding Cultural Relevance
In a media landscape where attention is increasingly fragmented, brand partnerships are one of the most powerful tools for keeping an IP culturally relevant. By strategically collaborating with other brands, gaming franchises can tap into new audiences, create viral moments, and reinforce their place in pop culture.
No game has done this better than Fortnite. Through high-profile collaborations with Star Wars, Marvel, Dragon Ball, Naruto, and more, Epic Games has turned Fortnite into a transmedia playground, where characters and worlds collide in ways that feel both surprising and organic. These partnerships keep the game relevant for younger audiences who experience storytelling in a highly interactive, cross-branded way.
🏰 Location-Based Entertainment: Immersing Fans in the World of the Story
When an IP expands into theme parks, interactive experiences, and pop-up events, it shifts from being a story to a place fans can physically step into. This deepens emotional investment by making the world feel tangible, allowing audiences to inhabit it rather than just consume it.
Nintendo capitalized on this strategy with Super Nintendo World, which launched in Japan in 2021 before expanding to the U.S. in 2023. The park isn’t just a collection of rides—it’s an interactive extension of the Mario universe, complete with gamified wristbands that allow guests to collect digital coins, complete challenges, and interact with the environment. This bridges the gap between game mechanics and real-world immersion, reinforcing the Nintendo ecosystem in a way no other medium could.
For gaming franchises, LBE works best when it captures the essence of interactivity in real life and reinforces the fantasies that made the game compelling in a truly multi-dimensional way.
🎯🏗️ The Takeaway: Build with Intention
Every storytelling format must serve a specific function within the transmedia ecosystem. A game-first strategy isn’t about spreading content everywhere—it’s about placing the right stories in the right places to maximize engagement and revenue.
Before expanding into transmedia, every game studio should ask: "How does this storytelling extension reinforce the core game experience and grow the overall IP?"
At Magnus Rex we specialize in developing multi-tiered storytelling strategies. If these ideas resonate with you and you’re interested in discussing a project, contact us at hello@magnusrex.com.
Thanks for reading!
Derick Tsai
Founder, CEO
Magnus Rex: An IP Development Studio