In my bitter cynicism that has grown only with the years when the Gamescom trailer played back in August I rolled my eyes and waited for the narrative to begin it’s worn out routine. Men are bad, patriarchy is evil and Christianity is the devil! Imagine my shock when the trailer depicted the Christian authority figure called the Patriarch as the good guy. Seemingly praising traditional masculinity as it tries to fix a broken world. It was refreshing to say the least.
Fast forward a few months to the Xbox X019 event and we see what the stewardship of Microsoft can do in such a short time. The trailer’s playing to Hidden Citizens’ “Land of Confusion” in what would if not for the overt symbolism be hauntingly beautiful. As the characters approach the Patriarch with American flags draped from the walls, the background sounds and the narration deathen for the singer to regale us with “Too many men, too many people, making too many problems.”
There is no subtlety to any of the trailer’s message. The Patriarch, whom a few months ago was fighting to make the world safe, is now an evil tyrant whose children are magnitudes worse and going around butchering the innocent. All of them standing in the way of the resurrection of Democracy (we’re a Republic and yes there is a difference), Freedom, and “equality.”
In nature who shall reign again after the end of the world and all things are equal? Nature does not play favorites, nor bestow privilege onto anyone. To those living in privilege today, catered to by the system this very much will appear to be oppression.
The apocalypse has reset the world freeing everyone by bathing the world in atomic fire. If you don’t like your lot you are free to go live somewhere else and establish your own way of life. There will be no one to provide for you, no one to keep you safe, but if you want that you are going to have to recognize their rules. People can rob you, kill you, and oppress you with impunity because that is what happens in a state of absolute freedom. The strong reign the weak bow their heads. Welcome to nature.
As for democracy, if the people were going to hold a vote how do you think that would go? The Patriarch’s forces are loyal to him, so if you vote them out they’re just going to leave and ignore any calls for help when a giant machine attacks your settlement or cannibals want what you’re serving.
Ultimately this is my problem with these people in general. They don’t understand the principles they espouse. They think those who believe in these ideas are like them; that we don’t pay them any real heed and they’re nothing but buzz words that we rally around and use for arguments. When we say equality we mean opportunity, when we say freedom we mean from unjust government regulation and oversight, when we say democracy well we don’t have a clue what we’re talking about so they got us there. You can blame education for failing to teach us what a Republic is and what rights are, but with the internet at our fingertips truly there is no excuse.
(random art no sauce)
There’s the real issue with these narrative devices. They devolve the experience into a political discussion when video games are meant to either be an exploration or escapism. When instead of enjoying either you’re going off on the nuances of the concepts that’s not a fun experience even for big brains like myself.
It’s frankly tiring to watch them parade around the ideas they think the common person believes in, but do so in a manner devoid of any meaning. Revealing more to their empty understanding of the concepts than any narrative structure the experience might have. Instead of discussing gameplay, aesthetics, theme exploration — few of which is even on display in the trailer other than flashy and vapid visuals — the trailer was designed more to elicit a sense of excitement over nothing.
Do not believe me? Aside from “Patriarch bad”, machines aplenty, tell me what this game is about or anything about its core mechanics? There’s nothing communicated about the experience, just the developer’s ideology.