Killing the Character

Consider, if you will, Grand Theft Auto IV.  In Rockstar’s latest magnum opus, you play as Niko Bellic, a Balkan immigrant with a sordid past.  Though he is motivated by his guilt, his straight-laced yet eternally unlucky cousin, and a blossoming romance with the innocent sister of one of his new compatriots to break free of his history of violence and ultimately change his ways, he inevitably finds himself ever dragged back down into the underbelly of Liberty City.  This internally-motivated conflict forms the narrative backbone of GTAIV, as we are told through beautifully rendered, very cinematic cutscenes and in-game dialogue between Niko and the game’s other characters.

Here’s the rub – Grand Theft Auto IV is a game that predicates itself on absolute player freedom and open exploration in a living city.  To try and force a fixed narrative into a game like that seems at best, silly and at worst damaging to the game’s credibility.  We are told through cutscenes that Niko desires a break from his violent past, yet I have distinct memories of mowing down businessmen in a stolen Lamborghini (sorry, Infernus) dropping hand grenades out my driver-side window to evade the police.  I dated several girls from the Internet (and even railed a few) in spite of the seemingly serious relationship being developed with Kate McReary.  In other words, I could do things that were directly contradictory to the characterization of Niko I was given through the game’s static narrative, and it had absolutely no bearing on how the game played out.  It was as though Rockstar’s Niko and my Niko were two totally different characters who just happened to inhabit the same game world.  The tension (or, to get terminological on you, “ludonarrative dissonance”) that this caused got so bad that as a result, the game’s deep and (let’s face it) heavy handed narrative started to diminish in impact.  The cutscenes were, after all, just distractions I had to endure in between my rampages of violence and debauchery.

Obviously few would realistically argue that the way to avoid this problem would be to remove some of that choice from games and force you with a stronger hand to walk the path outlined by the story.  That would strip games of their defining elements, and we’d simply be playing through somebody’s long-winded, 12 hour movie – no thank you!  Instead, let’s finally recognize the differences that games have with film.  Films use characters and established narratives to communicate their thematic messages because those are the only tools available to them.  In a video game, I don’t need that because I inhabit the world myself.  I literally create my own story.  To cling to these vestigial elements only holds games back from their true narrative potential and as a result we get a massive confusion of story and gameplay.  Let’s finally take the step and cut the character, or at least the “narrative” character out of the equation altogether.

This poster boy doesn't even have a name. Take that, Master Chief.

It’s encouraging to see that some developers are already experimenting with this.  I recently bought Ubisoft’s Far Cry 2 on a whim, and upon playing through it was impressed at how character-agnostic the game was.  Before the game even begins, you choose a character to play as from a list.  No characterization is offered; you have nothing but a name and a nationality to distinguish your chosen avatar from any of the others.  The game itself features no overarching narrative that guides the action.  That’s not to say that the game is listless and nebulous, as you are playing through a story of sorts.  But Ubisoft is stingy with the details and that is, ultimately, the game’s greatest strength.  You know the basics (setting, overall “point” of the game, etc).  The rest is up to you.  There are no cutscenes to try and tell you what “should” be happening.  The action is never broken up (or worse, contradicted) by distinct “story” segments, for there’s hardly any to speak of.  The story in Far Cry 2 is simply the story of your chosen mercenary, as told by you, the player, through the action that you choose to take part in.  You create it as you play.

The truth is that video games are an excellent storytelling medium.  Their narrative potential surpasses, I think, even that of film.  Which is why it kills me that people seem to be obsessed with making games mimic movies as much as possible.  To try and recreate the cinematic in a video game seems, if anything, to be limiting to the medium.  Grand Theft Auto IV is, almost objectively speaking, a fantastic game and a genuine achievement for video games as a whole.  Yet as I was playing it, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was playing somebody else’s story with somebody else’s character, with me just being the vessel.  In video games, we are no longer simply the audience.  We are now also the author of our own story, as told by how we play.  These blockbuster characters, as well established and expertly characterized as they are, are a barrier to video games actualizing on their narrative potential.  We must move past cinematic mimesis and kill the character in order for games to truly come to life.