What we do
Hindsight may be 20/20, but preparedness relies on the quality of your foresight.
How prepared are you?
Narrative Gaming brings the future into focus, enabling you to identify risks earlier, make more informed choices, and plan with greater confidence.
Through immersive simulations, we help decision-makers explore future risks, test strategies, and prepare for critical choices before they are faced with them.
Today’s challenges rarely fit neatly into one category. National Security, Geopolitics, Technology, Resilience, Preparedness, Climate Impact, and Corporate Risk intersect in ways that are unpredictable and rapidly evolving. Traditional workshops and analysis can explain the issues, but struggle to inspire confidence, let alone action.
Narrative wargaming bridges this gap by combining conventional analytical tools and subject matter expertise with the driving force of active participation.
Unlike conventional wargames or abstract models, our games place players inside the immediacy and complexity of plausible near-future events. They must confront uncertainty, face credible adversaries, and weigh trade-offs under pressure, while practising collaboration and coordination within and across teams.
As a result, policies can be tested and evaluated safely and privately, a process that exposes vulnerabilities and challenges assumptions, improving their next iteration and informing future planning.
Our 5-Stage Methodology
The result is a methodology that not only prepares leaders for complexity but equips them to respond with clarity, confidence, and resilience
- 01. Understand
- 02. Design
- 03. Develop
- 04. Deliver
- 05. Report
Understand
Work with stakeholders and subject matter experts to define the strategic problem and decision space.
This stage establishes the intellectual foundations of the exercise. Through structured conversations and analysis, we identify pivotal dynamics within the scenario, evaluating competing interests, emerging risks, and dilemmas. We frame a scenario space that is credible and strategically relevant, ensuring the game reflects the realities decision-makers are likely to face.
Design
Shape the architecture of the game: its objectives, structure, player roles, and strategic dilemmas.
Using insights developed in the Understand phase, we translate complexity into a playable strategic environment. Narrative arcs, decision points, and information flows are carefully structured so that participants encounter uncertainty and pressure that mimics real-world tensions. The design provides structure while leaving room for player agency.
Develop
Produce the materials that bring the scenario to life: injects, media, and narrative content.
At this stage the design becomes tangible. We create the full set of gameplay materials required to sustain immersion and guide the unfolding narrative. Each element is developed and tested to ensure the experience feels coherent and plausible, while maintaining pace and momentum.
Deliver
Deliver the game as a live strategic exercise, supported by expert facilitation and adjudication.
Participants step into the scenario and work through the situation as it develops. As decisions are taken, expert adjudication interprets their consequences, introducing second- and third-order effects that shape the unfolding situation. The environment changes in response to player actions, revealing how strategies perform under pressure.
Report
Capture and analyse the decisions made during gameplay, translating outcomes into clear insights for future strategy.
Following the exercise, we review the decisions taken and the dynamics that shaped them. The analysis focuses on players’ assumptions, preparedness, and any potential risks. These insights are distilled into a structured output that helps organisations reflect on the experience and apply the lessons to future strategy and planning.
Our 5-Stage Methodology
The result is a methodology that not only prepares leaders for complexity but equips them to respond with clarity, confidence and resilience.
Our 5-Stage Methodology
Understand
Work with stakeholders and SMEs to analyse the scenario space—mapping actors, tensions, dilemmas, and interdependencies.
Design
Shape the structure, objectives, and narrative arcs. Build in strategic ambiguity to reflect real-world uncertainty.
Develop
Create role briefs, injects, turn sheets, and media feeds. Playtest to ensure immersion, plausibility, and flow.
Deliver
Run the game with expert facilitation and adjudication. Use live injects to stress-test decisions in real time.
Report
Capture decisions, analyse outcomes, and surface insights. Translate findings into actionable recommendations that inform planning and communications.
Our 5-Stage Methodology
Understand
Work with stakeholders and SMEs to analyse the scenario space—mapping actors, tensions, dilemmas, and interdependencies.
Design
Shape the structure, objectives, and narrative arcs. Build in strategic ambiguity to reflect real-world uncertainty.
Develop
Create role briefs, injects, turn sheets, and media feeds. Playtest to ensure immersion, plausibility, and flow.
Deliver
Run the game with expert facilitation and adjudication. Use live injects to stress-test decisions in real time.
Report
Capture decisions, analyse outcomes, and surface insights. Translate findings into actionable recommendations that inform planning and communications.
Narrative wargaming is more than a game; it is a catalyst for strategy.
The insights it generates are not theoretical; they are lived and felt. That makes them more memorable, actionable, and enduring than static reports or workshops.
To deepen impact, we link our narrative gaming services with our specialist supporting consultancy services:
- Strategic Planning – turning insights into clear objectives, actionable plans, and aligned leadership.
- Strategic Communications – refining the narratives that carry strategy forward, ensuring messages resonate internally and externally.
The result is a methodology that not only prepares leaders for complexity but equips them to respond with clarity, confidence, and resilience.
Use Cases
Our narrative games deliver high-impact insights across areas like AI and corporate strategy to defence, national security, crisis response, and critical infrastructure. Whether supporting government agencies, energy and financial services, or the defence community, we help leaders stress-test decisions, uncover blind spots, and build resilience in the face of accelerating complexity.
The future favours those who prepare.
Get in touch to rehearse your future, today.