I Have No Words & I Must Describe Something
When someone asks me what a new game is like, odds are the first thing I’ll tell them about it is the genre. In the sense that I think it will appeal to this person based on other games like it, or other games I know they’ve liked. The genre I’m referring to is the kind “invented by someone in marketing for a press release, and regurgitated” (Anthropy and Clark 7) now, by me.This isn’t an ineffective way of describing a game for the purpose of a recommendation, in fact it’s mostly all we know.
However, I would like to question that knowledge, in myself, at least. To that end, I will take a recent example of trying to describe a new game, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, to a friend. He asks me what kind of game it is and I tell him, “Oh, it’s from the people that made Dark Souls, so it’s kind of like that.” This answer does provide him with a measure of understanding, but if we’re being honest, it barely describes the actual game. For one, it’s not being called Dark Souls 4, so there is an intentional breaking away from that franchise, even if some design elements do carry over.
Admittedly, there are some things that carry over. A quick glance at the trailer even shows me some attacking animations that are familiar, and it is a bit more valid to apply the term “souls-like” here, because the game is made by those responsible for the Dark Souls series. And yet, to describe it thus, does Sekiro a disservice, not to mention myself. Rather than trust in my own ability to explain something I’ve opted for language that gives a general, but decidedly less than nuanced description of the game. It also speaks to a distrust that I have in others, that they will not be able to understand what I’m talking about without the use of market driven language.
As the game is still a few days out I can’t speak definitively about it, but the trailer reveals some pretty stark differences from its predecessors. To start, there is more verticality. The character can jump and climb. Dark Souls gave your character a very limited ability to jump but it rarely came into play, there might be one or two pits that you can avoid but it is not a core part of the exploration. Not only can the character in Sekiro jump, he has a grappling hook for an arm. The ability to climb and grapple also open up opportunities for stealth, another new option for the player. Already we’re in a pretty different place mechanically. Another difference worthy of note here is the emphasis on narrative storytelling, something the Souls series attempts to avoid.
Perhaps it is a bit like Dark Souls in terms of its combat. As mentioned, some animations definitely ring familiar, yet the ability to jump or grapple change the pace and flow of encounters considerably. The ability to sneak and defeat enemies through stealth changes the way the players can experience the world greatly. Perhaps even allowing players the opportunity to bypass combat in some situations, something that was possible but rarely a deliberate design consideration until now.
Rather than accepting the terminology that advertisers offer me to describe the things I enjoy, I would rather trust in my own ability to communicate those things. I think in doing so I will be able to better discuss these things anyways, better communicate why I like what I like, and what it is about those things that I like. Perhaps if we can all do this we might wrest some control over the world in which the things we love are created from the advertisers who currently run the ship.
