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.
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.