You’re right, the arc is still the same, only now the audience is pulling the strings instead of the director. Every interactive title tries to keep the three‑act structure – call to adventure, threshold, return – but splinters it into endless branches. It’s like turning a single river into a maze of streams: you can still follow the source, but you’re forced to negotiate every fork. The problem is that the “hero” loses the sense of inevitability. When the player can buy power‑ups or skip trials, the narrative becomes a series of decision trees, not a tightly wound narrative knot. In short, the old map is still drawn, but the roads are now player‑carved, which keeps the skeleton but dilutes the emotional stakes that come from a forced journey.