The use of serious games in military training has now become commonplace. However, unlike most commercial entertainment games, explicit “storylines� (as portrayed in, for example, cut scene inserts) are rarely used to introduce games-based training simulations. A storyline constitutes an information-rich framework for the structuring of learning content delivery, networked episodes, tasks and activities. It follows a narrative and pedagogical outline with reference to key questions, learning tasks, activities, resources, media and cooperative interactions. A game-based simulation study was undertaken using undergraduate Defence Technical Officer and Engineer Entry Scheme students from the UK universities of Birmingham and Aston. Based around cultural awareness training, a core scenario and narrative were developed to teach participants how to interact with a fictional civilian population. The experimental aim was to investigate if the method of narrative delivery had a direct impact on the student’s learning performance. Using one of three delivery styles (“passive�, “semi-active� and “active�), the narrative took the form of (a) a paper brief, (b) a (military) instructor-led presentation, (c) a short paper brief followed by an interactive but predominantly scripted first-person (FP) simulation scenario, and (d) a fully interactive FP scenario. Participants were then exposed to a similar FP scenario in which they had 20 minutes to achieve the objective of intercepting an insurgent. In addition, subjective measures of participant learning style were obtained to investigate whether or not different styles might have some bearing on the impact of specific narrative delivery method. This paper presents the early findings of this study, which is sponsored by the UK’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (dstl).