An essential part of the video game experience are the characters. How the characters are perceived as believable can make or break the immersion of the experience. This paper aims to create a model which can be used as a tool for analysis, designed to measure believability in video game characters. For consistency, we first define the term believability. Using thematic analysis, we aim to evaluate what components are relevant in the design process of a new model. This is achieved by studying three characters from japanese role playing games using two existing models to measure believability in artificial agents, as this hasn't been done in this context in the past.

The results show that relevant components in existing models does indeed exist, but they lack some components mirroring feelings and personal development in characters from japanese role playing games. In addition to this, problems arising from the categorization of characters in models designed to measure believability is discovered. Two versions of the new model are presented, one designed to measure characters from various genres, and one designed to specifically measure characters from japanese role playing games. A different approach to categorize video game characters is also presented in the latter version of the new model.