The next incorporates spoilers for each Clock Tower (Human Leisure 1995) and Lamentum (Obscure Leisure 2021).
I’ve been taking part in by way of Clock Tower Rewind (Wayforward 2024) currently, the remastered model of the unique 1995 survival horror recreation that had by no means made its method out of Japan formally earlier than. One of many recreation’s endings is to flee from the home prematurely, by driving out in a automotive. The sport’s protagonist, Jennifer, escapes after dismissing whether or not or not it is very important know whether or not her mates have survived or not. The sport does this in a intelligent method, because the automotive secret is simple to search out. On first interacting with the automotive, automotive key in hand, Jennifer wonders what has occurred to her mates. She has to know! When you’ve discovered that every one of them are useless, and even that one in all them continues to be alive, you may decide to flee within the automotive. If one in all them continues to be alive, this feels just like the coward’s method out. However if you happen to work together with it thrice, Jennifer decides that nicely, she might certainly escape, and escape proper now, simply to save lots of her personal pores and skin.
The ending punishes Jennifer by having the killer hiding within the backseat of the automotive. Not solely might Jennifer not save her mates, she couldn’t resist the truths on the coronary heart of this terrible manor. She meets her grisly finish by the hands of the scissor-wielding serial killer.
This obtained me enthusiastic about a recreation I performed on stream in 2023 referred to as Lamentum, a survival horror I hadn’t considered for a while. As a result of I noticed that that recreation had included a homage to Clock Tower in its early escape ending. At concerning the midway mark of the sport, there’s an possibility for the protagonist, Victor, to bail on the hunt to search out out simply what’s occurred to his (very clearly useless) spouse. Ostensibly, this is the same option to the one Jennifer makes to save lots of her personal pores and skin and get out. Nevertheless, the way in which the sport framed this ending at all times sat poorly with me.
Lamentum is a recreation with a plot similar to Silent Hill 2’s (Konami 2001). The primary character is a doting husband and loving companion. He’s pressured to look at as his spouse turns into increasingly in poor health, and so, determined, Victor is keen to go and see some reclusive outdated wealthy one that lives in a manor and guarantees the remedy. The manor – clearly steeped within the occult – is purple flag after purple flag. Victor, nonetheless, will not be keen to see any of this, and his first evening there ends with him slipping right into a coma and his spouse vanishing. When he awakes, the entire manor has change into the positioning of a demon outbreak, with monsters in every single place. Typical survival horror-ing ensues.
The sport appears to be constructing in direction of a message that we have to settle for loss as part of our lives. Victor’s spouse Alissa (hmmm, Clock Tower 3..?) is that this ghostly presence who by no means says something to us and is at all times simply out of our attain. We go to more and more harmful locations simply to get a glimpse of her, to attempt to assist Victor get previous his infuriating genre-blindness. Within the case of Silent Hill 2, I might purchase that James was a bit genre-blind, as a result of he appeared like he didn’t care whether or not he lived or died. Victor, whereas largely missing a definite persona, at all times appeared to me genuinely clueless that he’s in a horrifying state of affairs, one which he needs to get out of alive. The sport appears to be constructing in direction of a message that human life, whereas exceedingly treasured, will at all times have a finite time restrict on it. Positive, we are able to dream about immortality, and what it will imply for us to stay for lots of and lots of of years, however that’s not achievable. So, Lamentum appears nicely outfitted to inform a narrative about that letting go (comparable in operate to how a few of Silent Hill 2’s endings work).
This early depart ending indicators that perhaps this will probably be an escape from the insanity. What a daring transfer, I believed to myself as I first performed the sport. This will probably be a chance for the sport to actually touch upon the futility of Victor’s quest, and perhaps embrace a satisfying little jab on the insistent want we end video video games. That want to complete video video games typically comes on the detriment of the characters whose lives we maintain on our palms – so this could have been a pleasant little subversive second, earlier than, y’know, I’m going and see the ultimate boss and so forth. For completeness’ sake. However that’s not what Lamentum does.
The escape ending takes Victor into the fog, the place it’s mentioned he wanders blindly, endlessly to be taunted by what he perceives as his failure. I strongly dislike this ending as a result of it implies that the one technique to be glad is to proceed trying to find solutions, past the purpose of all cause. Let me reiterate that this can be a home filled with demons, inhuman abominations, and monstrosities. I perceive that Victor can be feeling upset at his personal failure to search out solutions, and that the fog would take a while to maneuver out of. However I don’t assume it’s a good ethical lesson to impart on the participant, given the sport’s context. And it’s right here that I began to marvel what the usage of a recreation as an ethical automobile can be. Let me be clear that video games should not have a accountability always to be completely ethical, and that I don’t equate illustration or simulation to endorsement. We ought to be allowed to depict issues we don’t agree with, issues which are wretched or horrible, with out folks pointing fingers and shedding their minds over mere depiction. Actually, I believe many video games must do extra to consider what their gameplay loops are literally instructing folks. While you actually boil it down, what’s a recreation like Fortnite’s solo battle royale mode really arguing by way of its gameplay loop? Maybe that there can solely be one winner, and that winner should shoot, loot, and deceive their technique to whole victory. Even when folks don’t assume a recreation is influencing their thought course of, I believe after sufficient time has handed, there are results we are able to discover on a micro degree, even when it doesn’t change somebody’s complete persona all of sudden, usually.
Lamentum’s narrative appears to be reaching for a narrative that superbly illuminates the failings of the human situation – that we are able to by no means have all the things we wish, however we try for these items anyway. I hoped that the escape ending would have been greater than only a fancier fail state or recreation over. I had some religion that Lamentum would acknowledge that, even within the context of demon-worshipping wealthy folks’s manors, there’s something to be mentioned for accepting that you might have suffered, and that’s okay. I believe Lamentum sabotages its probability to inform that story just by saying you failed. The truth is, it’s worse than that – the sport calls this ending the “Cowardice” ending. It is a developer imposing their morality on you thru express judgment from the sport’s interface. That’s one thing I dislike. A status meter going up or down is okay – that’s diegetic. However morality? Outdoors of one thing like Star Wars, that’s a a lot thornier idea to must code in to your recreation. It’s a pitfall, in different phrases, an apparent lure. Lamentum suffers from this, simply as one thing like Fallout 3 (Bethesda Softworks 2008) does when it’s poorly thought by way of or scripted badly.
It’s at this level that you just’re in all probability considering once more of Clock Tower’s automotive escape ending. As a result of I believe that automotive ending appears, on the floor, just like Lamentum’s laughably-named “Cowardice” ending. Clock Tower’s escape ending punishes Jennifer with demise for abandoning Jennifer’s mates and the seek for the reality, and Lamentum’s ending punishes Victor with a scarcity of peace and determination for his personal incapability to find that reality. However the place one recreation is about saving one’s mates and acquiring justice for the useless, the opposite recreation is about a lot headier, extra existential questions. When is it proper to say goodbye? When do we are saying that our personal survival is extra vital than that of true, whole closure? Including supernatural parts merely complicates this matter. The builders of Lamentum say that whole closure will not be solely doable, however that it’s the solely path to take, even to the purpose of seeing much more grotesque abominations and witnessing our personal whole destruction, psychological or bodily. Taking the remainder of the sport’s themes under consideration, I contemplate this an irresponsibly self-destructive angle.
A recreation’s narrative framing is exceedingly vital. A recreation’s themes are exceedingly vital. When a recreation misinterprets – seemingly – its personal themes, I can’t assist however really feel pissed off. It felt to me that Lamentum’s builders included it as an possibility simply to taunt the participant. Clock Tower’s ending ramped up the horror – the killer is within the backseat! – however Lamentum’s ending stumbles on the end line, collapses right into a ragged heap, and says… you suck. That additionally might have been an excellent ending if the narrative had cohered extra. If Victor’s spouse had certainly really appeared alive. If there’d been extra hints that issues might have a happier decision. If it hadn’t been a recreation about pursuing the spectre of 1’s useless beloved one. Taken at face worth, the sport’s message endorses an infinite, unhelpful obsession with reminiscence and “higher days”. However fleeing is the selection that matches the sport’s themes and its narrative – and the sport scolds you for taking it. We’ve a accountability to do higher, and to demand higher, from a recreation speaking about critical human experiences. It’s wonderful to have a joke ending, or for a recreation to fall flat – however critique within the latter case is at all times vital. It’s clear as nicely that Lamentum means it when it says you’re a coward. It’s not joking round.
Ought to video games be ethical automobiles, on a regular basis? No. However I believe recreation builders must assume extra rigorously concerning the classes imparted not simply by mismanaged ending dialogues, however by the gameplay themselves. There’s extra to come back from me on that entrance, however I’ve been taking a look at increasing on a few of what Ian Bogost says in his e-book Persuasive Gaming (2007), and within the e-book Persuasive Gaming in Context (2021), which displays on the successes and failures of that motion. We do ourselves as online game gamers a disservice to not mirror on the video games we play, and the messages they include. It’s exceedingly vital, in an age the place authoritarian backsliding claims video video games are immoral, to acknowledge the failings of the medium whereas nonetheless spitting within the face of those that demand censorship and for video video games to only go and be edutainment on a regular basis, and even worse, to only kill the medium off fully. There’s a center floor – video video games can set up their procedural rhetoric extra rigorously and extra thoughtfully, making for deeper, extra mature gaming experiences. On the similar time, video games must also not go about making an attempt to stop you from pulling the set off as a demon worshipper’s face is changed into a meaty paste by a shotgun.
There’s a wonderful line to be walked within the coming years, and I hate dipping my toes into the tradition wars – a distraction from the larger issues of wealth inequality and the authoritarian centralization of energy – however video video games, I believe, are going to be an more and more political flashpoint. They’ll inform tales about ecology, about useful resource mismanagement, concerning the horrors of political injustice. They’re vectors for defiance with regard to gender, sexuality, local weather, gun legal guidelines, immigration, genocide, battle, and mass demise akin to that being horrifically dealt to Palestinian folks proper now – and we, as recreation lovers, recreation critics, recreation students, recreation gamers, have to make use of them for good, now greater than ever. Free video games like these made by Twine creator Porpentine supply defiant readings of contemporary society and selfhood. Video video games may be websites of resistance, in addition to locations of excellent storytelling. And that, I believe, is why rightwing advocates are afraid of them. Ought to video games be ethical automobiles? No. However they need to be defiant and put ahead coherent narratives and gameplay, ludo-narrative concord somewhat than dissonance, that give us cause to attempt for higher. We owe it to one another as human beings.
