Bit of an explanation as to what prompted me to make this post: I recently played through Sniper Ghost Warrior: Contracts 1 and 2 and I just felt off. I’ve slaughtered hundreds of innocents for my amusement in games like Fallout and TES, I play through No Russian with a grin, but for some reason, I refrain from killing bad guys in SGW? The first one has you hunt down Russian oligarchs and war criminals, while the second one is about Middle Eastern terrorists and this is the game where I feel bad about killing? There’s just something about the soldiers talking about their daily problems like making no money, uncomfortable boots and sweating too much, or showing eachother pictures of their dogs, not to mention the absolute horror when you’ve got a knife against their throat or when they find a body. I hope this isn’t weird, but I’ve never experienced remorse for killing a video game enemy, and I’ve played a lot of different games. I’d like to hear about your experiences, and which games do a good job humanising common enemies, the concept intrigues me.
Surprised I had to scroll this far to find Undertale! Doing a geno run after a pacifist run is an absolute guilt trip like no other. You know the characters, their foibles, their hopes and dreams, and you know there are going to be consequences. Not only does the game morph into the vibes of you being a serial killer, >!but you’re setup as the literal antagonist against a heroine!<. And the game basically gives you outs at every turn. >!Papyrus appealing to your base humanity as you murder him is fucking heartrending.!<
A game has never made me feel guilt like that before. >!And then it follows you over, so you’ll always be cursed with the guilt.!< Fucking hell Toby Fox lol.
It calls you out on your obsession with pushing the game to its limit, being so attached to a piece of art that you become toxic towards its world. It makes sure that the genocide can’t be an accident, and makes you work really hard to make it happen, AND it convinces you that it’s a real universe and begs you, not the character but you, the player, to stop killing, so that you truly feel the brunt of what you’ve done. The toxic obsession you have with this piece of media becomes a character, Chara. It’s your “determination” as the player that brought rise to them. It’s an incredibly deep story and more effective at producing guilt than anything I’ve seen ever.
Wait until Deltarune is finished and try the weird route. It’s already disturbing as hell…
But god damn are those boss fights fun!
I’m also flabbergasted at how low this is! Undertale is like THE game for the bad feels on killing