Say Less

It’s important for a player to be able to relate to or even project themselves on the playable character.  Personally and seemingly less popular, I prefer to do so with a blank slate or “silent protagonist.”  That’s not to say I don’t enjoy games where I play a pre-defined character on a pre-defined journey, but every time a protagonist speaks there’s a risk of rubbing the player the wrong way.  This is why in many cases, if given the choice, I would prefer to have a silent protagonist.

One of the most famous silent protagonists, Link of Legend of Zelda, earned his name for being the connection between the player and the avatar, per series creator Shigeru Miyamoto. Although this justification may have been good marketing for a technical limitation of the time, Link remains silent to this day.  This continues to serve the series well for two main reasons:

• Exploration, level design, and puzzles are the heart of the Zelda series, not so much Link himself.

• Link is always on a standard Hero’s Journey.  On the occasion we choose dialogue for him, nothing significantly changes and he always helps.  This doesn’t exactly need a nuanced voice or spoken motivation, and anything Link would say would add little effect.

That’s not to say a silent protagonist is always the right option.  On the other side of the spectrum, it is just as engaging to play as a written character on a set storyline.  One of my favorite protagonists, Ichiban Kasuga from Like a Dragon, is anything but silent.  He wears his emotions on his sleeve and will help anyone no matter how big or small (or ridiculous) the issue is. Even though I can’t relate to joining the Yakuza, running a confections shop, or having that birds-nest haircut, Ichiban is simply a lovable protagonist to play and there was never a point where the gameplay or story made him feel like an inconsistent character. 

I share similar sentiments for Chai in Hi-Fi Rush, whose endless charm and badass (if cheesy) one-liners made me smile every time.

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“You got a killer track, but every song’s gotta end!”

-Chai, Hi-Fi Rush

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In my experience, I’m most likely to lose connection to the character when the narrative style falls somewhere between these two styles.  Despite my love for the game overall (it being one of my few Platinum trophies), I’ve never felt more at odds with a main character than I did with Jin Sakai in Ghost of Tsushima.  If you’ve somehow missed playing this game, the premise is quick: Mongols invaded a feudal, samurai-run Tsushima.  The defending samurai are nearly wiped out as a result with seemingly only Jin surviving the massacre.  The core conceit of the story is that Jin is forced to use dishonorable tactics (i.e. become the Ghost) and break the samurai code he holds dear to topple the Mongolian invasion and claim back his lands.

The premise is great, but here’s the problem: I, the one holding the controller, did not need and did not prefer to use “ghost” tactics. Unless it would result in automatic mission failure, I started nearly every encounter I could with a standoff then peeled through each enemy personally, one at a time; so every time Jin laments the loss of his honor and moral code I as a player feel less validated for having just honorably slaughtered twenty enemies all by myself moments ago.

Why leave the gameplay open to handle every combat situation as the player sees fit if one method (and the more straightforward one at that) is completely at odds with the story being told?  If everyone I interact with predeterminately praises me or chides me for breaking my code, whether I did or not, why not make it overwhelmingly difficult to fight head-on?  Would it not have been truer to the story to have Dishonored type gameplay where even if you somehow succeeded in fighting everyone head-on and completely disregarded stealth, you at least got a bad grade?  

In games like Ghost of Tsushima, I can’t help but feel that a silent protagonist with some tweaking of other character’s dialogue would have served just as well.  Whether you primarily opt for stealth and become the ghost, or try and do Lord-Uncle Shimura proud by making eye contact with every enemy you kill; you decide how you did it, why you did it, how you feel about it, and what you think of everyone’s thoughts on it.

Player-choice or “Choices matter” RPGs are another popular story-telling that would seemingly solve the bill of complaints I make, but these often feel more shallow than the imagination left to playing a silent protagonist.  It may be a “me problem,” but given dialogue options rarely hit the mark I’m going for.  So often it seems your dialogue options are reduced to:

• Unwarranted hostility

• Nice to a fault

• Cringe or “RaNDoM” humor

• Cool guy coded, but not cool

However, there are great and well-done examples of dialogue options too.  Baldur’s Gate 3 is the most recent and best example that comes to mind.  Even if dialogue options don’t always fit in with what you would say, your stats may justify the dialogue options you choose. You can even fail horribly at what you’re saying which adds a living element to the story and characters; but even the plethora of BG3’s dialogue options and how well they’re implemented pail in comparison to the game it emulates: Good ole’ tabletop Dungeons & Dragons, where every player character is silent until the player gives them life.

FromSoftware excels at the silent protagonist, giving modern examples of why games don’t need, or even benefit from a spoken one.  As a Tarnished in Elden Ring, you are free to express yourselves through the stats you choose to excel in, the outfit you wear, emotes, and the way you interact with the multiplayer systems.  There couldn’t reasonably be enough dialogue options that would support the specific vision players have of their characters without occasionally distancing that connection at times.

FromSoftware also made my current favorite silent protagonist.  Who could forget the classic hero, RB-23 AUGMENTED HUMAN C4-621, CALLSIGN: “RAVEN” from Armored Core VI: The Fires of Rubicon? 

621 (pronounced “six-two-one”) is a mercenary that doesn’t speak one bit the whole game.  No screams, no “HIIIIYAAAHS,” no cussin’.  All dialogue is sourced from comms with your handler, Walter, and the 4-5 factions you work for, play against each other, and operate independently from.  Your actions do the talking for you.  The way everyone speaks of you as you continue to conquer greater and greater feats makes you feel more like a force of nature than a mere player in the war.  By the end, everyone fears that whatever side you’re on is the side that will win.  There are no words or voice 621 could have that would add to the Goliath image I have of them; it could only serve to maintain their reputation at best, and risk discrediting it otherwise.

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“I AM the Fires of Rubicon”

-Not 621, Armored Core VI: The Fires of Rubicon, because that’d be stupid as hell

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When a protagonist is a written character they put themselves out there to be loved, hated, or loved-to-be-hated. This can be done to great effect but it can also serve to disconnect the player from the game.  When the protagonist is silent, it leaves the intricacies of the character up to the player’s imagination which will often be in favor of connecting with the character more.

Now that the introduction is over, in this essay, I will convey why R2-D2 is more beloved than C-3PO […]

The *small* Case For Advertising in Games

I must admit that I’ve always found advertising interesting, but this is not to be mistaken with enjoying all ads.  With the recent news of Electronic Arts (EA) once again considering adding advertisements for video games, it's interesting to consider how they plan to apply them and how there have been and continue to be successful and non-alienating ways of in-game advertisements (although, trusting EA to this may be hopeless).

When it comes to in-game advertisements, my first thought almost always goes towards an example I found funny (and therefore, non-intrusive) as a kid: Pikmin 2.  In this game the protagonist, Olimar, crash lands on an alien but earth-looking planet.  The player is tasked with controlling Olimar/Pikmin in collecting trinkets and ship parts spread around the crash site.  One of the first items the player will pick up is a Duracell D-battery, except it’s captioned “Courage Reactor” when collected:

From: Nintendo’s “Pikmin 2”

It’s not that this is paramount to world-building or the keystone of the game, but it is a bit of a chuckle, gives a sense of scale, and an “a-ha!” moment in allowing the player to learn this “alien” planet is Earth.  Usually, or nowadays, I would be annoyed at the inclusion of this type of product placement; but something about it in the context of Pikmin makes it charming and not as meddling.

One could argue that in-game advertisements also bring a realistic setting to one of the most consistently popular genres in video games year over the years: Sports (which just so happens to be within EA’s domain).  People don’t purchase sports games such as Fifa yearly to look at ads, but it is an accepted part of the setting to have playing fields, arenas, and jerseys filled with sponsorships.  Even most courts, rinks, fields, and stadiums are named after major corporate sponsors nowadays – Would it feel more correct to have your favorite team play at some unnamed home stadium?  Or to wash these teams and stages of their atmosphere in favor of an adless utopia?  This isn’t to suggest, however, that the player would enjoy being subjected to ads between plays just for the sake of realism either though.

In the same vein as major league sports games, brand exposure in titles such as Pro Skater or MX vs. ATV can be appealing to the players as well.  If you’re a skater or motocrosser in real life, odds are that you have preferred brands within those hobbies.  Given customization options, players enjoy the opportunity to connect with their avatar if not project themselves to it directly.  

Cross-promotion events are becoming an increasingly popular avenue of in-game advertising.  Fortnite, of course, is the leading example of this.  Fortnite transcends simple crossovers within nerd pop culture to a point where it crosses over with famous artists, movies/TV franchises, and even Nike!  In addition to simple brand exposure, the benefit to marketing in this way is that not only do players not mind the promotions: they’ll pay for the luxury of representing your brand.

I won’t pretend that advertising in video games isn’t usually implemented in an annoying and alienating way.  There are the Monster cans in Death Stranding which, unlike Pikmin, do not feel like a thoughtful easter egg but rather the out-of-place product placement they are. There’s Mercedes in Mario Kart which, although it doesn’t alienate me any more than being a simple option, is something I’d prefer were not in the game.  

I don’t particularly support the mass adoption of advertising into video games, but I also don’t believe people hate advertising as much as they think they do; they just hate bad advertising.  If sponsorship became a prevalent way for developers to secure funding while lessening the need for an overbearing publisher (and even better if they’re able to implement that advertising creatively); that could be a better alternative to how the current industry operates. 

On “Immersion”

“Immersion” has become a buzzword in the video game industry over the last few years.  If not through marketing material, it’s often used in reviews, journalism, and the like.  Unlike other overused identifiers or elements, such as “open world,” “RPG,” “choices matter,” or “roguelike(lite)s,” “immersion” isn’t bound to static rules and has a different meaning for everyone.  What are the video games that have truly immersed you?  Which have turned the hours into minutes?  

It’s almost impossible to pinpoint specific mechanics that lead to immersion when the rules aren’t even consistent within one individual.  For example, mission-based games, where you are taken to a menu and have to hit some form of “start” between gameplay, create an inertia that takes me out of the moment and is more likely to have me put down the controller. Yet, games like Hardspace Shipbreaker or Armored Core manage to carry their milieu through menu screens, keeping me engaged.

Immersion is a commitment to a setting.  Visually, it can boast top-of-the-industry graphics or pixels and sprites.  It can take the form of a point-and-click adventure or a massive RPG.  The theme can range from serious to goofy.  No matter the vision, immersion must allow the player to roleplay or self-insert within the world.  There are many different genres and settings I’ve found myself immersed in: 

• A pixelated farmer and loner who hangs out with my fellow weirdos: Dwarf, Krobus, Wizard, and Clint (Stardew Valley, farming sim).

• A benevolent lamb who leads (read: sacrifices) a hive (read: cult) of worker bees in return for eternal gratitude (Cult of the Lamb, roguelite/colony sim).

• A futuristic blue-collar junkyard scrapper trying to pay off a small loan of 1.25 billion dollars (Hardspace Shipbreaker, work sim/dad game).

• A militaristic super citizen, defending the people of Super Earth and beyond, spreading democracy to those who haven’t asked for it (Helldivers 2, co-op horde shooter).

• A mute with a lot of glue and a knack for engineering (Tears of the Kingdom, Zelda game).

• The guiding hand of a 2D colony of leg-stealers and organ-harvesters (Rimworld, story-telling colony sim).

• A cyber-ninja-wizard, hacking and slashing and hacking my way to legendary status (Cyberpunk 2077, open-world RPG).

Despite the breadth of genres, the throughline between these games is how consistent they are to their theme no matter how silly it may be.  This can be done by giving players agency and free will, honing in on a specific sense of humor, world-building, etc.  The more a player understands who they would be in that world, or what persona to don, the more immersive the game becomes.

To others, immersion may take the form of realism.  AAA graphics, story-driven narrative, an open-world setting, etc.  Red Dead Redemption 2 is a game that so many people have described as immersive (to the point that it’s the first time I took specific note of the word) but is completely lost on me.  Hackneyed animal-skinning animation jabs aside, I feel that the protagonist, Arthur, moves like a tank with too high a center of gravity.  I find it annoying having to square up perfectly perpendicular to a medicine cabinet to interact with it.  I think the gunplay is on par with Fallout 3 with a less-fun bullet time/VATS system to compensate.  I don’t particularly care that NPCs have a schedule.  I can’t deny how prestigious the game is, but even some as well-made and renowned for “immersion” as Red Dead will still miss that mark with some of its audience.

Immersion isn’t a requirement for a game to be good, however.  I can still enjoy the story of Red Dead Redemption 2 while finding the gameplay tedious.  Conversely, I can’t honestly say I have ever been immersed in my most-played game of all time, Rocket League.  Immersion should not be a marketing keyword but rather a feeling left to individuals to find for themselves.  As a player, learning and understanding what makes me sink into a game and its world has helped me hone in on the types of games I enjoy most, while also nudging me toward great games I might have otherwise disregarded due to genre.

Cooperative Gaming

Perhaps it’s a bias stemming from my taste in games over recent years, but there seems to be a major rise in the cooperative game scene, and I’m in for it.  Although some of my favorite games are cooperative (Monster Hunter, Deep Rock Galactic), it wasn’t something I had thoughtfully considered until recently reading Katsuhiro Harada’s (Executive Producer for Tekken 8) comments on what he sees as a generational difference between gamers.

Recently, on the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences Game Maker’s Notebook podcast, Harada postulated that younger gamers are not as interested in one-on-one fighting games compared to the previous generation(s), preferring cooperative experiences instead. 

“If you applied to a school or job, there was always a lot of competition.  Because of this, people in my generation prefer definitive outcomes, a clear winner and loser. This applies to folks in and around their 50s, but most young people nowadays are the opposite.

[...] because fighting games pit you by yourself against a single opponent, you have to accept all the responsibility if you lose. You can’t blame anyone else.  In team-based shooters, when players win, they can say that they won because of their own contributions, but when they lose, it’s because they got matched with a lousy team.”

There’s plenty to disagree with or false equivalencies to call out, but Harada’s trajectory here is more about capturing a younger audience than it is to spurn them for his perceived differences. 

Mostly, Harada’s words got me thinking about the differences between different cooperative games.  When I think of cooperative games, Rock & Sto-I mean-Deep Rock Galactic stands as the premier example of cooperative gameplay: Collected resources go to everybody, the classes complement each other while remaining unique, communication is thoughtful without the need for voice chat, the HUB world encourages camaraderie, and there’s of course the dedicated team-building “Rock & Stone!” button; and that’s all without considering the excellent community surrounding the game.  In this case, my feelings align with Harada’s relatively well.

Then there’s the other kind of cooperative games – The Overwatches, the Counter-Strikes, the… the… League of Legends… Here, the competition to be the best is still as present as a fighting game.  Think it’s fun to best one opponent?  How about five of them? How about doing so while being the commander & chief of a winning team? Participation in a team does not mean one is without their individual statistics, and therefore a measure of impact.  Although the bell of diffusing the blame but claiming the victories rings true for many in these games, I would add that letting a team down, or feeling pressure to impress them, is much more defeating than losing to one person in a duel.  It may not be the same, but it isn’t without its stakes.

The claim that one-on-one games shift the blame onto oneself also falls flat when considering my experience with fighting games:

Now I know that being unable to overcome simple spamming is a reflection of my skills and that a better player would win with ease; but the fact that it’s a one-on-one battle doesn’t magically make me accept full responsibility.  I don’t even accept responsibility against computers as I quit every Souls game I’ve ever played at some point because “That boss is total bull****.”   Looking at the drop off of earned trophies through the main plot progression indicates that many others do the same.

All that to say, I may disagree with individual points but as with all words that strike enough of a cord for me to write about: There’s a degree of truth in it.  I do prefer cooperative games, not to share the blame but to work towards a common goal.  There’s an assumption in his words that one only plays team-based games for the explicit purpose of self-preservation, but many enjoy simply sharing an experience with their friends.

Show, and Tell

Successful marketing takes much more than entertaining viewers with a trailer or building excitement around IP.  The most important factor in every campaign is finding and knowing your audience. Unfortunately, having the best product in any specific category doesn’t always translate directly into customers or more favorable public perception.  In the video game industry specifically, I often feel there’s a disconnect between what the advertisers feel the need to convey and what their audience wants to see.   

For a simple example of a team knowing their audience, you need look no further than mobile game ads.  These often deceitful advertisements are incredible at evoking feelings of superiority and frustration by showing the game being poorly played intentionally; motivating the player to download the game to play it better. I do not always condone the tactics used in these types of advertisements, but regardless the teams behind them certainly know their audience.

I’ll do it myself

More interestingly, it’s sad to see good games falter due to a mismatch in messaging and audience expectations.  Marvel’s Midnight Suns developed by Firaxis (creators of the XCOM series) comes to mind. Aside from using Metallica’s most popular songs for all... three… trailers… They used these trailers to focus solely on the story aspect of the game and the generic “Hero” protagonist; both based on a beloved but little-known comic run of the same name.  Not only did their official gameplay reveal neglect to convey what gameplay would wholly look like, but it introduced and didn’t explain a mechanic completely foreign to the Firaxis audience: cards.  These factors combined had the effect of alienating Firaxis’ existing XCOM audience while failing to leverage the Marvel IP to capture a more casual Marvel fan.

When it comes to marketing, specifically video games, I often wonder: What’s wrong with just telling us about the game?  What does a prestigious CGI trailer with copyrighted music actually convey about how the game plays?  Do you know your audience?  Hindsight is of course 20/20, but if Firaxis were to have asked for my opinion, I would have focused on a few talking points:

1. This is from the creators of XCOM and is still a tactics game, but it is not a reskin of XCOM.

   • Explain the new card system and action economy, particularly when cards in video games usually imply deckbuilding a la Slay the Spire.

   • Clarify that “Super Heroes don’t miss.” The head developer, Jake Solomon, said this during an interview with MinnMax.  If you’ve played XCOM, you know missing 85% chance shots is both a running joke and a pain point.

2. You live with Marvel superheroes.  Interacting with them and building relationships will make you both stronger, unlock new outfits, and enrich the story overall.  Highlight these smaller-scale RPG elements.

3. Tactics and strategy games aren’t as in-vogue as an FPS or RPG. Instead of watering down the mechanics for the masses, distill them for your audience.

I’d reiterate now that Midnight Suns is a good game with bad marketing.  I love the gameplay, and I sucked at wasn’t even a part of the preexisting XCOM fan base!  Midnight Suns highlighted one of marketing's greatest pitfalls: flash over function.  Those CGI trailers are more expensive to produce than ones capturing gameplay while offering nothing for potential buyers to latch onto.  It would be much more effective to communicate what the intended overall experience is supposed to be like.

I was decidedly uninterested in the game until I watched the MinnMax interview mentioned above, where Jake Solomon simply explained what he felt was great about the game.  He clarified how cards were used in the game, why he chose to go that route (and the coinciding struggles), but most importantly he was enthusiastic about the game and confident in the end result. It reaffirmed in me how impactful candidness and passion are, and how contagious that attitude can be to the given audience.

To juxtapose with an example of a game in a similar niche genre that did it right, I’d recommend watching the Ara: History Untold section from the Xbox Developer Direct 2024.  Ara: History Untold is an upcoming 4X (Explore, Expand, Exploit, Exterminate) game that was given 12-13 minutes of breathing room in the showcase.  Not only are the gameplay, UI, systems, and experience prominent talking points, but the most convincing elements of their presentation are the developer’s personal in-game experiences and their enthusiasm for the project.  

Cinematic-based trailers certainly have their place, and I don’t mean to imply I’m immune to the hype surrounding some of them, but these are at their best when used by a series with long-standing audience trust; such as the Monster Hunter series and their latest trailer for Wilds.  By and large, though, well-developed video games would benefit from a presentation showcasing the gameplay, the intended experience, and the enthusiasm the creators have for the game.