From Gaming Screens to Reality TV: How Video Games Prepared a Traitors Finalist
The dramatic conclusion of the latest series of The Traitors left viewers on the edge of their seats, but for one contestant, the experience felt strangely familiar. Jade Scott, who reached the 2026 finals of the BBC's hit reality show, credits her background in video gaming with providing the strategic mindset needed to navigate the treacherous social dynamics of the competition.
Minecraft Beginnings to Strategic Gaming
"Minecraft was my way in when I was fifteen," Scott reveals, describing how the popular building game helped her forge friendships at school. What began as an innocent introduction to gaming evolved into a serious interest in complex strategy titles. She progressed to competitive games like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Dota, where her tactical thinking truly developed.
"That's where my interest in strategy gaming really kicked in," she explains. This foundation proved unexpectedly valuable when she entered the high-pressure environment of The Traitors, a show directly inspired by social deduction games like Werewolf and Mafia.
Social Deduction Games as Training Ground
In the year leading up to her appearance on the show, Scott immersed herself in two indie social deduction games: the survival adventure Project Winter and the office satire Dale & Dawson Stationery Supplies. Both games require players to complete tasks while identifying saboteurs within their group - essentially mirroring the core mechanics of The Traitors.
"I always wanted to go in as a faithful," Scott confirms. "My opinion has changed since leaving the castle, but I always thought the game was way harder for the faithfuls, and I like playing games on a harder setting."
She developed a specific strategy based on her gaming experience: "My approach was to enter and immediately garner some suspicion, because that way you're protected from murder. I just didn't realise how much suspicion I would get!"
Applying Gaming Tactics to Reality TV Pressure
The transition from digital gaming to real-world social deduction proved challenging. "With gaming, you sit behind a screen, communicating via Discord, so you just start talking and build friendly relationships," Scott observes. "But with The Traitors, you have nothing to hide behind. It was a very different environment in which to think about strategy and how I communicate with people."
Despite this adjustment, her gaming background provided crucial skills. "I was quite good at defending myself at the roundtable," she says. "A lot of that came from the practice I got with social deception games. The second you approach the table with logic and reasoning, and say, 'I understand why you think that, but I have done nothing to suggest it,' they have nothing to argue with."
Systematic Observation and Note-Taking
Scott brought meticulous organisation from strategy simulations to her Traitors experience. She developed a sophisticated tracking system: "Every day I had a sort of traffic light system indicating how I felt about each person. Green showed who I thought was faithful, though you're never completely certain - and inevitably those people would get murdered! Red indicated who I was more convinced was a traitor."
She even created visual relationship maps: "I wrote everyone's names on paper and drew lines between them based on who I saw having conversations - similar to those cork boards TV detectives use with red lines between photos. I stared at that page, and the only contestants I hadn't connected were Rachel and Stephen. You become so focused on defending yourself that you sometimes miss the obvious."
Life Beyond the Castle
Since her Traitors experience, Scott has shifted her gaming preferences. "I haven't played a social deduction game since leaving the castle," she admits, perhaps having had her fill of suspicion. She now prefers solitary puzzle games like Outer Wilds and Blue Prince, which challenge players against mysterious environments rather than other people.
Interestingly, her reality TV experience has provided unexpected benefits in her academic life. As a PhD student, she found the roundtable skills transferable: "Something I've been really apprehens about, like many PhD students, is the viva - where you sit with examiners and defend your thesis. I've really learned how to defend myself and argue a point effectively."
Scott's journey demonstrates how skills developed in virtual worlds can translate to real-world challenges, proving that gaming experience can provide unexpected advantages in high-pressure social situations far beyond the screen.
