In games, we are used to the scenario of the good guys defeating the bad guys. But what if the lines between good and bad are thin? We remember the games that put us in such stories.
I think we are all taught from an early age that the good guys always win at the end of the story. The obstacles that stand in the way of the heroes are only temporary, and the villains will always get what comes their way – a stunt in the nose, whether it’s a fairy tale, a cartoon or a game. This is rightfully the norm in storytelling because people generally don’t prefer stories that make them feel bad.
Some braver storytellers will put the heroes to hard times, give the villains a real chance to succeed in their evil plan, but in the end we come to the same conclusion again. Not only did the good guys win, but those good guys are always the ones you were told were the good guys right at the start… and then triumphed as expected in the story.
However, sometimes different stories come across. Those games that dare to ask forbidden questions: what if everything is not so black and white, what if the narrator masks who is the real hero and who is the villain? What if the line is thin?
I think each of us remembers the first time we experienced such a story, the one that broadened our horizons and made the villains the protagonists of the plot. The one that made us try to understand these villains by showing us things from their perspective.
For me, such a game was Blizzard’s StarCraft from 1997. At first, in this cult strategy, the story starts in a rather one-way way: people discover that they are not alone on the new worlds they have colonized, and they encounter two other factions that are marked as threats. The beastly Zerg in particular are immediately introduced as villains.
During the first campaign, some of StarCraft’s heroes seemingly perish, such as ghost operative Sarah Kerrigan, and it is also hinted that the human faction is not universally filled with do-gooders. At the end of the campaign, instead of the expected end, you will be greeted by an unexpected continuation. Exactly what inspired this text: you unlock a new campaign, a continuation of the story, but now you play from the Zerg perspective!
That set my mind on fire as a boy. The campaign with the Zergs was not some kind of fan mode or some kind of skirmish option. It was a full-blooded campaign with villains in which you then wonder if you were right to label them as villains. Because from their perspective, of course, they are not. Then you also play with the third faction, which again has its own points of view. The story thus gains tremendous depth and quality, and what a villain we got in the hybrid Kerrigan… Realize that there can be positives and negatives in each faction, that they are distinguished by their attitudes, willingness to help and defend others or stab them in the back.
We have a similar situation in the legendary Warcraft 3, where campaigns with different factions line up and continue the story where the previous one left off. We see the rise and fall of the legendary Arthas, Illidan and others, and I believe that at some point the smile of the toothy Ghouls becomes cute despite the Undead being the bad guys.
It has been proven, therefore, that by changing the perspective, a richer story can be told than a one-way one. However, it can also turn off audiences who prefer one-way narratives. Perhaps the most controversial decision of its kind was made in The Last of Us Part II, the sequel to the much-loved game that turned the narrative of the original on its head and thrashed it before the shocked eyes of players. Naughty Dog told the story they wanted to tell, but it wasn’t the story some of the audience wanted to hear, so the whole thing ended up being polarizing among fans of The Last of Us series.
For fear of disappointing the audience, a half-hearted portrayal of the other side is often used. For example, Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed Rogue had an interesting plot on the narrative side. After six games in which we played with the Assassins, in Roge we became their sworn opponent Templar. More precisely, it was about a change of sides for the main character Shay Cormac, who is disappointed by the assassin order, and gives us an insight that things are not always what they seem. In the end, we had a character who was on the wrong side from an outside point of view, but we can say that he was doing the right thing. I think more could have been achieved with that idea than what we ended up with, but then again, I personally appreciate AC Rogue more than the below average ratings the game has received.
And Star Wars has done a similar thing several times. The first trilogy of Star Wars films never managed to instill in me an excessive affinity for the main characters. Okay, Palpatine was hardened by a shriveled snake, but I didn’t necessarily see all the rebels as heroes and all the Imperials as criminals. From a certain perspective, one could say that they are orange a rebeland terrorists a factor of chaos disrupting the galactic peace…? Such a perspective was promised by the campaign of Star Wars Battlefront II from 2017, where we had the opportunity to play with the special operative of the Empire, Iden Versio. But look at the miracle, instead of fighting against the rebels, she changes sides after a few introductory missions…
We had a similar situation in Battlefield V, in whose single-player campaign an episode from the perspective of German troops in World War II was subsequently added. We rarely see that side of the story, but when we do, it’s usually only at the end of the war, when the enemy is defeated and the story is there to convey their remorse.
Speaking of regrets, I’ll end with the awesome Red Dead Redemption games where there’s no regrets. Both John Marston and Arthur Morgan are aware of who and what they are – thieves and murderers. There is a bit of remorse for the direction life has taken them, but as Marston explains it:
“I’ve killed people and I’ve suffered for it. It’s a life I left. Or tried to leave. I’m an uneducated killer, sent here to do what I’m good at – kill a man in cold blood so another man can do his thing and reduce crime so that a rich man can be elected governor.”
In the world of Red Dead, who is the real villain: the one who orders the murder or the one who carries it out under duress? The lines are intricate, just like in the case of the ultimate antagonist, Dutch van der Linde. When Marston describes him in the first game, he has kind words for him, even though he ultimately had to escape from his gang to get out alive.
“The leader of the gang taught me to read, he taught me how to see goodness in the world. He was a great man, in his own way…” – says John. In the Red Dead Redemption games, it’s like that – even though we play with criminals, it doesn’t mean that everything is black or white. If Rockstar’s characters were just one-dimensional robbers, we’d be the ones being robbed!