ReCore: The Error in Misreading Dystopia
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I first discovered ReCore at its re-release as the Definitive Edition in 2017 following a major update. While the update did not create a perfect game, nor even an excellent one, it took a technically flawed yet intriguing premise, shaved away the technical bugs, and left it a mostly enjoyable though still structurally flawed game. Yet that is only if you take the game on its own terms as a futuristic save-the-world action flick fantasy with nicely animalized robots as Joule’s, the main character, companions. I believe there is a vast danger beyond the veil of what could be reduced to merely a story about a girl and her dog. If you dig under the layers of sand Joule sometimes endlessly has to dash across in what seems to become more Lawrence of Arabia than extraplanetary terraforming expedition at times, what remains are some haunting connections between the game’s premise, its conduct, and our current sociopolitical, cultural moment.
The game’s use of animalistic robots, called “corebots”, in addition to its central conflict revolving around one, highly sentient corebot, an ape-like hulk named Victor, parallels with the America’s vast mistreatment of animals through factory farming. Also, the game’s premise that a climatological crisis drove humanity from earth toward a new home references our current predicament of humans vs. climate change with the backdrop of such egomaniacal men such as Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk (particularly, it must be said, Musk, since he seems dead-set on the world knowing his every pseudo-revolutionary move; Bezos, on the other hand, is much quieter about it all) who privately spend themselves to the stars with no notion of what needs to be salvaged beneath and around our feet. Their carelessness ultimately points toward our misshapen perceptions of the dystopic canon and its actual purpose for us as consumers of it. Dystopic stories (myself an avid fan, especially the series Metro 2033, which similarly paints an egalitarian portrait of pulling on bootstraps amid seemingly dismal surroundings) are dangerous for our psyche and obfuscate true address of our current predicament if only taken at face value.
The game begins with the “Dust Devil Plague” that ravages Earth in the 2020s. All efforts to quell its effects fail and humanity, through an organization called Mandate, sends several colonization missions to a planet called Far Eden. Perhaps ReCore’s problematic ethos begins here, the colonial overtone and harkening to Manifest Destiny all too palpable in Mandate’s otherwise nobly presented vision. The game quickly establishes that despite having technology to zoom light years across the galaxy, Mandate did not have the technology to save a failing planet. How nearly prescient when, in 2018, we can genetically modify plants into any shape or form we desire yet cannot readily repair the negative consequences of clear-cutting the rainforest. ReCore makes no mention of this technological chicanery.
Yet this colonization did not initially come in the form of humans. Instead, humanity sent the corebots ahead of them. Human would-be-colonists entered cryo-sleep and prepped for landing on a fully terraformed homeworld as the corebots worked to make the destination habitable. Somewhere in between the onset of sleep and the projected human arrival time, the corebots became corrupted, rebelled, and took over the planet without conducting a full terraform. Joule, the only promised survivor at the game’s outset, then wakes from cryo-sleep early to find “their” new home in its semi-original, mostly-uninhabitable state with only Mack, her loyal dog corebot, for company. During her mission to restore the planet’s terraforming system, Joule encounters Victor, the leader of the corebot rebellion and the only corebot who can speak. How he gained this ability is never explained.
I would be remiss not to point out a clear dialectic this game shares with the Biblical origin story of humanity. Not only is the planet named Far Eden, only two humans appear in the game. Joule, the Eve archetype, and Kai, the Adam. Joule’s father appears merely through audio recordings and easily takes the place of a distant God sans efficacy or domain while still trying to bestow wisdom and guidance and Victor easily fits the Promethean snake billing. The reversal against the canon comes in that Joule is center stage, in charge of “naming the animals”, and responsible for restoring the Garden. Victor meanwhile is consistently hostile and antagonistic, and leads his corebots in that hostility as they attempt to control the planet and make it completely inhospitable for Joule and other humans. He, unlike the snake, aims for victory through obliteration instead of deception.
Victor’s first act of true agency is a righteous, if limited, one. He disrupts the human colonial enterprise by obfuscating the majority of the colony’s arrival and shutting down the terraforming pylon at a point where only corebots might enjoyable populate Far Eden. The fulcrum of the rebellion comes from the corebots having been forced to do humanity’s hard labor in preparation for human control of the planet. Victor, in his sentience, showed them another way, one that split from human gain. Every single corebot, excepting those shielded from Victor’s soapbox by a human attachment (numbering two in addition to Mack), follows him.
This initial working state of the corebots pairs with our current treatment of animals. In the game, the corebots are not sentient though obviously designed to have at minimum the emotional equivalence of animals. In reality, animals experience emotion, feel pain, etc. Both categories were ignored, relegated, exploited for human consumerism and gain. In ReCore, we needed a new home and bought it at expense of the corebots. In life, we want cheap meat and dairy so we exploit the producers of those commodities. What is necessary for this exploitation in both scenarios is firstly distance, though each medium presents this distance differently. For ReCore, the corebot rebellion is possible because the corebots were alone terraforming the planet for a hundred years before humans would arrive, allowing them the space to craft themselves a different deity.
In contrast, one of the reasons we are able to ignore animals’ plight is because the vast majority of us do not experience their suffering firsthand or on a regular basis (meaning if we did, there might arise a rebellion). Even if we do at some point experience animal suffering, we can escape it and return to the unnatural order. I say unnatural because I believe there is nothing “natural” about willful cruelty. I expect few of us have diseased chickens clucking around our kitchens to remind us the horrors of factory farming. What is secondly key to the continuation of this exploitation in both circumstances is necessity. In ReCore, the premise establishes the necessity of exploitation by showing a planet that humans could not survive on without corebot intervention. Once arrived, the exploitation continues to be necessary when Joules comes up against an inflexible warlord in Victor. Her survival depends on eliminating these rogue agents at whatever cost, something she would be incapable of doing without her corebot companions whose loyalty, strangely, never wavers.
Our culture has so intertwined the act of eating with the consumption of meat that it is easy to see how it may feel necessary for anyone who has never attempted a different lifestyle. However, the agonizing thing about our conduct is that there is nothing necessary about animal exploitation and mistreatment. We could feed the entire planet without consuming animals if we distributed our food supplies equitably. In the case of most Americans, animal products could easily be replaced by making instant, different decisions in our shopping. That we choose not to is a sign of our blindness and moral compromise, however necessary we might paint their consumption. At least in ReCore actual survival is at stake, making the hordes of bumblebee, spider, and wolf corebots Joule/you blast through relatively palatable, even at times, as the game clearly intends, enjoyable. I believe we should absolutely avoid consumption of products that result in animal slaughter in all possible scenarios. I also believe it can at least be done more ethically. It is a twisted product of American culture that those statements feel radical for me to say.
Nothing about the current establishment should allow us sleep at night, which is where we come back to ReCore, since humans were actually incapable of sleeping once something jarred them awake: the corebot rebellion broke up the cryo-sleep cycle, stopped most of humanity from finding a home, and forced Joule into action earlier than she expected. It’s laughable to imagine a herd of cows self-organizing and rampaging through the nearest rural hamlet, setting houses on fire while a newly-vocal cow spokesperson spouts anti-human vitriol. Nonetheless, I can’t help but think that is what it would take for us to really pay attention. If only chickens could go on pseudo-hunger strike and cease laying eggs until they received proper treatment and better living conditions.
ReCore makes no comment on the justice fueling Victor’s (and the rogue corebots’) position. Joule does not reflect on it either. Instead, Joule, with the help of a few still-loyal corebots, plows always ahead toward finishing the terraforming, thus making the planet friendly for humans. This, as every ensuing chaotic barrage from Joule’s plasma rifle makes clear, must come at the expense of the corebots, who are nothing if not tenacious in their defense of a planet that the game’s bleak environments do a fabulous job of painting, perhaps unconsciously, as theirs. All corebots unwilling to align themselves with Joule and her mission are expunged. If only animals ever had the choice.
Exploitation need not, nor should it ever, be central to progress of any kind. I’ll take a retrograde economy over progress at moral expense any day. And, if not addressed democratically, progress somewhere is likely to come with regression, if not downright collapse, elsewhere. The lack of acknowledgement or nuance given to Victor’s (re: animals’) righteous anger is problematic, this even after he is a given a voice and not relegated to the minor grunts and machinic clankings that the rest of his followers are. Most of Victor’s invective is aimed at gloating over Joule’s, not humanity’s, presumed failure. He is painted too simple to be sympathetic. Just another deranged villain, however compromisingly human-caused that derangement might be. Never once in ReCore is there a moment of redemption for a rogue corebot or even the hint that there could be. Once pitted against humanity, always in opposition (i.e. once we begin exploiting animals, why turn back?). In terms of the game, the only good corebot is one with unflinching loyalty to Joule’s venture. It’s not a stretch to connect this with the idea that most Americans think the best type of cow is a plated slab of beef. Any non-tasty cows need not apply.
The philosophical underpinnings of ReCore begin with animal treatment yet extend into a treatment of our current problematic relationship with our planet. It bears reminding: why did Joule and her fellow cryo-sleep travelers leave Earth in the first place? They had destroyed Earth. The humans behind Mandate could not save Earth through their superior technology, but ReCore believes they could still save the human race. I’m not sure if we are there yet but I think it would be disastrous if the human race ever got to a place where we considered ourselves as anything but creatures uniquely and specifically destined for life on Earth. ReCore takes for granted that we are not. That we are mobile.
The notion that we could pick up and move in an extra-planetary sense any more than we could dump a load of salmon in the middle of Manhattan and expect them to become their best selves is ludicrous. This kind of escapism is central to ReCore’s fantasy as the player guides Joule through tricky, sci-fi platforming dungeons intercut with primary-colored combat scenarios. Humans obviously do not belong on Far Eden or even in the zany, techno-punk corebot constructions that serve as the game’s levels and set pieces. But we are there and spectacularly succeeding with each double jump, rifle blast, and forward dash courtesy Joule’s special sand-buster boots.
Enter Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk. In the recent essay “Narcissists in Space” by Rachel Riederer in Jacobin Magazine, she makes the point that, “What they [Musk and Bezos] share is an origin story about private space exploration — both say their interest stems from a desire to save humanity from planetary collapse.” Perhaps they missed Before the Flood and its suggested solutions, none of which involve escaping Earth. I haven’t run the odds but I think it’s entirely more possible to save our current planet than to colonize another. Musk and Bezos don’t want to save humanity. They want to be saviors. There’s a difference.
Riederer notes that “the space barons insist on framing their pursuits as inspirational and civic-minded.” While she doesn’t come out and say it, I believe she’d agree that it’s hard to see the civic lean in Musk attempting a city on Mars when there are cities literally going to be underwater and irrevocably destroyed if we do not shift the trajectory of our climate. Regardless, Musk and his ultra-wealthy cohort seem mostly removed from any mainstream discussion of climate responsibility, perhaps in part because of their vast wealth. It’s too much. How could anyone be responsible for it all? Nonetheless, they clearly become objects of scorn when Riederer says “someone who’s out for a grand adventure shouldn’t pretend to be a planetary EMT.” Current levels of animal exploitation fit into this “too much” argument snugly. Humans, when faced with the seemingly insurmountable, often capitulate unless they organize. This in no way frees us as individuals from moral culpability. Instead, it only shows we need to get better at organizing.
The point being that Musk and Bezos would be happily at home in ReCore’s Far Eden, as long as they were the ones who created, manufactured, and deployed the terraforming technology able to transform Far Eden into a second Earth. Here is another mirrored biblical narrative, this time of creating in one’s own image. For in Far Eden the goal is a new Earth. I imagine Musk would feel the same about Mars were it possible. But colonizing does not award naming rights. Back down to earth, Musk and Bezos are not God. They should not pretend they could play that role. They, similar to ReCore’s Mandate, seem blinded by shiny adventure. We must resist these billionaire’s false altruism and see it for what it is: egotism. Nowhere in ReCore or the public discourse does the question truly get asked before humans set foot somewhere new: do we even belong there? Apparently, we still have much to learn.
Thus, the smokescreen that dystopic literature and games such as ReCore promote and which private space exploration reinforces: the belief that no matter what situation we get ourselves into we will always be able to save ourselves. Perhaps it is not the beginning state of ReCore but rather the end state of the game, once Joule has defeated Victor and restarted the terraforming pylon, that is the true dystopia. It gives us a false hope that we might be able to keep doing business as usual and, even if collapse visits us in the middle, we will survive in the end. Sure, Joule saves Far Eden at the end. But for whom? Only herself and Kai. Pitted against the mountain of corebots she explodes along the way, value judgments could be made.
If we do not recognize the elusive trap of absorbing stories where the world is ruined, humanity crawls from the rubble, and restarts as mirror image to our current state, then our fate is a foregone conclusion. Jeffrey Tam writes about similar ideas in his recent essay “Fallout: Why Don’t We Set the World On Fire”, and Alfie Bown expands when he quotes Tam’s essay in his recent book The Playstation Dreamworld before saying, in reference to dystopian games and literature, “The problem we are faced with is not a lack of utopia, because this is really what dystopic dreams are: the enjoyment of a chance to restart in a more simplified world thinly veiled by the apparent horror of dystopic collapse” (Page 58). ReCore’s world is simple, it has a thinly veiled horror to it, and promises the chance of starting over literally by restarting the broken terraforming pylon. Thus, it’s another distraction, a comic tragedy.
On our current trajectory, that “chance to restart” is not our destiny. This is why dystopic art can be a fatal distraction. A true dystopia is a future where we mess the planet up and still get a chance to survive. Nature doesn’t work this way. Ask the dodo bird or the passenger pigeon. Our destiny is not Joule standing beside Mack at the top of the terraforming pylon as the world rights itself. Our destiny is not necessarily inclusive of salvation for the human race. Our destiny, if we do not correct our current ills, is doom.
