Space, Brutalism, & the Middle Ages
New beginnings
I’ve been way back into games lately, something I wasn’t expecting after feeling burned by all the hours in Destiny 2. Part of the motivation to leave Bungie’s 5 year long space epic was the narrative ambiguity and the endless grind for answers. Lore is commonly collected through an RNG drop and stitching it all together is best done by just reading the damn books on third party sites or by watching a four hour long video essay (which, by the way, is a work of fucking art in its own right). I never felt like my actions contributed enough to the cosmic conflict that began with Destiny 2’s Red War, which compounded the notion that I was more of a renegade space cowboy than a guardian.

Enter The Outer Worlds. Also Control. Oh, and A Plague Tale: Innocence. Three games with rich worlds and stories that unfold from progress, not an equation that’s tilted in favor of the house.

All three games have exceptionally strong narratives, writing, and acting. The Outer Worlds rewards you for every conversation you hold. Leveling your language skills opens more doors earlier and enabled a generally well liked “neutral adventurer” playthrough.

Control’s world is filled with notes, full motion videos, and other brilliantly designer assets that together build a deeply unsettling environment that enhances every moment of gameplay (see article linked in the next part for one of Control’s finest assets).

A Plague Tale: Innocence’s small side conversations with characters happen organically and never interrupt the flow of the game. The environment constantly pokes and prods at a character’s constitution which in turn affect the way the party interacts with one another.
While the gameplay loops for a single player narrative adventure game are more temporary than those of a service oriented game, the player reward feels far more tangible. I feel connected to Parvati in The Outer Worlds so much so that when she thanks me for being a good friend I feel it. I see Jesse’s struggle in Control as she juggles her new role as Director and her original mission to save her brother. I root for Amicia who faces unimaginable horror as she works to put her family back together.
A game can feel great. Destiny certainly does. But Destiny has also morphed into something far grander than the borderlands-ian spin off it started as. With no perceivable end in sight what was previously a means to an end became the end itself. And I ‘aint got time for that.
*Related — Ewan Wilson writes in “The Role of Posters in Video Game Worldbuilding” for The Face:
Exploring Control’s principle location, a vast, labyrinthine government building, you’re quickly acquainted with all kinds of office life: typewriters, swivel chairs, branded coffee mugs, and plenty of faintly threatening workplace posters, many of which are information notices, laying out the arcane elements of the Bureau’s work culture and bureaucracy.



Later!
Next week we’ll have played Death Stranding. Crazy.
See any errors? Critical spelling or grammar? Give me a shout here, on twitter.com/aalexdee or elsewhere at https://lintr.ee/aalexdee
