The Gentle Path - A Plea for a Different Take on Conflict Resolution in Action Games

When it comes to games as a narrative medium, there’s one big issue that comes up again and again. That issue is the ludicrous bodycount most action games ramp up along the course of their main storyline. The protagonist kills people left and right, butchery is—most of the time—the main venue of pretty much every (action) game out there. It is a problem I have with the medium, and I know I’m not alone.

Nathan Drake of Uncharted is the most prominent example of this bipolar disorder of a likeable dude in the cutscenes who shoots more people in the face than John Rambo

Nathan Drake of Uncharted is the most prominent example of this bipolar disorder of a likeable dude in the cutscenes who shoots more people in the face than John Rambo in his entire career before the first level is over. Here we have a nice, roguish character in the plot advancing cutscenes and dialogs and a crazed mass killer while the player is actually in control. Yes, the Uncharted games are action titles that do just that—they push out action all the way through. And in order to do this, a lot of enemies need to die. Over and over again.

For one, I would really like to see the medium get over this general pattern. Mass shootouts might be fun, but then again, at this point I’ve taken part in so damn many of them that the novelty is long gone to the point where the whole shotgun through the nose all the time becomes pretty boring pretty fast. And it’s a disservice to the story the game tries to tell.

There are in fact games out there already that prove things can be handled differently. It is in fact possible to make fast paced action games where the gruesome slaughter of hundreds of people isn’t the main attraction. Take 2008’s Mirror’s Edge for example. It’s fast, it’s fun and actual combat is something that’s actually better avoided than pursued. Granted, Mirror’s Edge wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea, and it didn’t exactly sell in the same range as any Call of Duty. It was a game with some flaws. But overall, it was a bold, beautiful game with a very strong vision in gameplay and (environmental) narrative.

It is in fact possible to make fast paced action games where the gruesome slaughter of hundreds of people isn’t the main attraction.

Then there are of course the various stealth titles, where it’s always better to avoid open combat altogether. Those games are rarely actually fast paced, however the more popular franchises sold well enough through the years that they actually became that. Franchises like Splinter Cell and Metal Gear Solid. Avoiding detection, precision strikes when necessary, evasion. It is possible to get through these games without killing everything that moves.

And then there is of course Portal and it’s sequel. Those games don’t have any combat at all—and may not technically be action games—so the body count is actually zero by default. Unless the adorable turrets count.

Another way is that of German censorship—and of upcoming Japanese shooter Binary Domain: Don’t kill people. Kill robots instead. Instead of having geysers of blood as hit indicators we have sparks; and instead of blood puddles on the floor, there’s oil. Limbs can fly off just as well, but it isn’t as gory.

Yet another way is that of Rocksteady’s Batman games, where the Dark Knight just doesn’t kill his opponents but merely knocks them out. It’s really just a cosmetic issue. For the sake of gameplay it doesn’t really matter if an oppoenent is knocked out cold, incapacitated or dead.

There just has to be a better way to game. One that doesn’t try selling me the nice guy as a mass murderer. Or vice versa.

The big problem here is that in order to make a game entertaining and filled with good, solid minute to minute gameplay, the main mechanic has to keep the player busy DOING something. Most games pull this of by having the player shoot a lot of people, and then some. For the sequels, there’s some variation thrown in. Better AI that takes cover. Better weapons. And so on. But eventually I want more from my games. It’s not just the production of a whole lot of dead bodies. It’s that eventually I’m growing tired of the whole thing of shooting people in the face. I want alternate solutions, different options. Be it that my opponent just, you know, gives up when shot because getting shot isn’t nice. More realistic, but maybe less fun. Or that—as it seems to be the case in Ubisoft’s promising survival horror piece I Am Alive which comes out soon—people surrender when the player puts a gun in their face.

There just has to be a better way to game. One that doesn’t try selling me the nice guy as a mass murderer. Or vice versa. I know it’s possible, it has been proven to be possible. At this point it’s just a question of marketing it right.