About Joshua
Joshua Rubin is an Emmy winning industry veteran who’s worked in Video Games, Film, TV Comics, Live Immersive and XR. He is Founder and Creative Director of Subverse Narrative Consulting, where he designs immersive worlds and interactive narratives for global IPs. His credits range from Assassin’s Creed II (Ubisoft) to Destiny (Bungie) to The Walking Dead (Telltale Games), and many more. In 2022, he won an Interactive Emmy for writing and producing Netflix’s You vs. Wild: Out Cold. Currently, he serves as Narrative Lead on Orion Drift, the new title from the creators of Gorilla Tag, the first $100 million VR game. He spends most of his time co-raising two feral humans and a quite civilized cat deep in the woods by the Hudson River.
The Talk
Designing immersive narratives for radical agency and human connection
Imagine a story that unfolds for you — because of you. This is Story Living.
In this provocative session, Joshua Rubin — award-winning writer of Assassin’s Creed II, Destiny, The Walking Dead, and Emmy-winning interactive Netflix shows — explores the next evolution of immersive storytelling.
Drawing from decades of experience across games, VR, AR, theater, and comics, Rubin tackles a key question: how do we give players real agency without losing emotional depth?
The session revolves around three pillars:
Radical Agency: Moving beyond simple choices to true player-driven stories through techniques like first-person immersion and improvisational theater.
Reactive Worlds: Using “story magnets” and “possibility spaces” to guide players while preserving the illusion of freedom.
Deep Personalization: Crafting intimate, transformative experiences through memory and behavior-driven storytelling.
Rubin closes with a bold vision: immersive story worlds as essential human infrastructure—creating meaning, not just content.
Perfect for anyone shaping the future of XR, games, and experiential storytelling.