Games Are Good for You
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"Every human society in recorded history has games. We don’t just solve problems out of necessity. We do it for fun. Even as adults. Leave a human being alone with a knotted rope and they will unravel it. Leave a human being alone with blocks and they will build something. Games are part of what makes us human. We see the world as a mystery, a puzzle, because we’ve always been a species of problem solvers." – The Talos Principle
Games as Storytelling: Our New "Myth"
I often wonder about the first stories our ancestors told eons ago as they turned to their theatres of ash and fire in the shelter of warmth-clad caves, watching the shadow-play of silhouettes and chalk carvings illuminate the walls to become the birthplace of myths and legends. As these fledgling forms of oral tradition took flight, so too did the scope of humankind itself: From the age of the harvest where fields fell to frost and star only to rise with the bounty of a merciful sun and its consorts, river and rainfall, to the ancient civilizations pillared on the foundations of the great epic poem, whose artists and poets became vessels of the gods they invoked.
Storytelling, just like problem-solving, is intrinsic to our evolutionary core. While our sense of awe has been jarringly disrupted by the distractions of stoic pragmatism dominating our social conditioning in mainstream Western culture, it is just as vital - if not more so - than it ever was. And just as importantly, the range of voices and mediums amplified in the telling of tales has evolved into a diverse, empowering, and globally accessible phenomenon: The videogame.
Gaming - especially computer-based gaming - has begun to flex its wings and carry equal power to its predecessors in the art of storytelling, giving us visceral and revelatory experiences that nurture our understanding of one another and the world around us. Once solely entertaining pastimes for cold winter evenings, scorching afternoons, or late-night gatherings with friends, it has evolved into the sentinel medium of our prodigal age. Like the theatrical and literary traditions preceding it, a game only needs the shape of an idea for it to be extracted from the ether and manifested into the realm of the living, granting us with the emotional and intellectual fortitude to guide our futures like the myths and legends of old - suspending our disbelief as we seek "not so much reality but the epiphany of truth" (Azar Nafisi).
It wasn't until I found myself embedded in the vast world of Skyrim and its rich saga-esque lore that I realized videogames can do for us what Joseph Campbell believed Star Wars and the "archetypal hero" did for its generation: It gave mainstream modern Western society - lacking its own myths and fables - the allegory needed to sustain optimism and resilience, finding the miraculous within the mundane. In the absence of stories, he reasons, we devise our own misguided code that is often isolationist, distancing ourselves from our community as we seek to endure. Without this cultural wisdom the existential core of our ethos fails, shattering our sense of purpose within the universe that is gifted us in the folktales from our forebears, such as the selfless leader, the origin of nature's tempered chaos, and the rebel who acquires forbidden knowledge to light a figurative fire.
But unlike other disciplines, the relationship between interactive medium and audience is more direct than ever: We are no longer a static observer but active protagonists/antagonists navigating a landscape which depends on us to bring its story to fruition while raising the stakes for the next epic hero (Mass Effect), coming to terms with our survival (The Last of Us), or preserving sacred folklore (Kisima Inŋitchuŋa/Never Alone). We become facilitators of hope in Horizon Zero Dawn, are asked to untangle the impregnable "A.I. Question" in Detroit: Become Human, and confronted with the demons of our nature in Fallout and The Witcher, while the tone poems of The Long Dark and Kentucky Route Zero steer us on a more intimate, transcendent trajectory of human existence.
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Joseph Campbell's The Power of Myth contextualizes the importance of myth in modern society. Photo credit: FetchQuester
The Future of Storytelling
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Grappling with the global crises of the 21st century, we still turn to storytelling for solace in the hopes of restoring that shared psyche lost to us, providing escapism while immersing us in environments where the consequences hold us accountable for the choices we make. Videogames explicitly set up a "Proximity of Consequence," a state of being-in-the-moment where the thoughts, emotions, and convictions of our character and their respective community become present and tangible to us, giving us a "lived experience" which is relatable and representative. This heightened sense of awareness allows us to shed our prejudices from the "real world" - a vital turning-point where compassion becomes empathy, responsibility becomes care, and the cautionary tale becomes a hard-hitting reality which spurs us into action in a world which, despite its vulnerability, is made liveable and worthy by those we meet on our journey.
Suddenly our choices matter, particularly where the path between good and evil is skewered and the harmony between "selfless" deeds and "righteous" action, of ethical motives and happy outcomes is fractured: Do we tell the soldier in Hades that his beloved Athens has fallen to plague, or do we forsake honesty so he may spend his eternity with a heart of ease? Do we respect a person's autonomy over their own body or do we intervene and save their life? Do we spare one individual out of mercy to risk repercussions for the whole community?
Interestingly - for those cynics who reduce videogames to a harmful medium - players show an overwhelming urge to opt for the "kindest" method when faced with such choices. In spite of the chaotic liberation that "going off the edge" in a virtual space unleashes, statistics from story-driven episodic titles like The Wolf Among Us and Life is Strange reveal largely non-violent, sympathetic tendencies even in desperate situations, while Mass Effect's "paragon" system dramatically outweighs its "renegade" counterpart in popularity.
Our judgement is bound only to the knowledge within our scope, and the consequences of these dilemmas often take form in unpredictable and surprising ways. This isn't so much punitive trickery as it is a humanizing reminder that we are dynamic and fallible as in real life, outsiders to the ever-knowing universe and its infinite possibilities. But that doesn't hold us back: If wisdom is understood as taking the pain of the world and still finding belief in enacting what is right, then videogames - like the epics before us - give us a protagonist who will keep pushing for their cause with all odds pitted against them, reaching into our own subconscious and giving us the motivation and courage to follow suit.
And much like real life, it is not only the overarching narrative which validates our convictions, but the metafictions, side-quests and little rites-of-passages which give us opportunity for exploration and characterization: The tiny gardens we grow, the letters we deliver, the songs we listen to. They are what make up the "heart" of the odyssey, binding us to the cultural, social, and spiritual sphere around us, piecing together the bigger picture. Games remind us that life is the sum of our choices - and we have more power and potential to make good in this lifetime than we realize.
- Lucy A.
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Sources:
Azar Nafisi: Reading Lolita in Tehran; Joseph Campbell: The Power of Myth with Bill Moyers; Assassin's Creed Odyssey (Ubisoft Québec/Ubisoft), Detroit: Become Human (Quantic Dream/Sony Interactive Entertainment), The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Fallout 4, (Bethesda Game Studios/Bethesda Softworks) Horizon Zero Dawn (Guerrilla Games/Sony Interactive Entertainment) Kentucky Route Zero (Cardboard Computer/Annapurna Interactive), Kisima Inŋitchuŋa/Never Alone (Upper One Games/E-Line Media), The Last of Us (Naughty Dog/Sony Interactive Entertainment), Life is Strange (Dontnod Entertainment/Square Enix), Mass Effect Trilogy (BioWare/Electronic Arts), The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (CD Projekt Red/CD Projekt), The Wolf Among Us (Telltale Games)
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