In Paradise Killer, Paradise is Impossible with a Ruling Class
Paradise Killer expertly lays out the intricacies of capitalist society without ever directly telling you how to feel about it.
Paradise Killer is a game in which you play as Lady Love Dies, an exiled detective who is let out of her bunker after 3 million days and needs to solve the mystery of how Paradise was killed.
The game takes place on Island Sequence 24, the 24th island that has been created to protect a small sect of humans in a pocket dimension. Right as the next island, Perfect 25, was created and people were being transported to it, the ruling council members left on 24 were all killed under mysterious circumstances. The circumstances make it so that you cannot access the place they died until much later in the game, and when you do it makes the case all the more confusing.
This article will spoil some of the background of the island, like why it is and how it exists, but I will try to not touch on the main mystery. So consider yourself warned for light spoilers ahead.
To keep paradise afloat, the Syndicate (of which Love Dies is a part of) invades the real world and abducts humans from it. The humans are then forced into slavery, instructed to worship the gods in order to power the reality folding drive that keeps the island afloat. When a new island is created, the citizens are slaughtered in the (aptly named) Slaughter Ritual, which helps give the council power to manifest the new one. It may sound confusing — but the way the worldbuilding is constructed is incredibly engrossing.
If you’re a lover of many random Proper Nouns being sprinkled among a world’s lore, you’ll absolutely adore this game.
Just like the world around them, the characters that make up the Syndicate are beautifully brought alive through art and text: they’re cool, and all their members are extremely hot.
Of course, despite appearances, the Syndicate is…not good. Yes, they are hot as hell, their names are great, but they are evil!! Deeply evil. On Island Sequence 24 alone, they enslave some three thousand humans!
But, even so, you are put in the center of this villainy: Paradise Killer places you in the shoes of Lady Love Dies, a member of the Syndicate who was exiled for falling under a god’s influence and almost bringing their little pocket dimension to an end. The main reason she was brought out was because she is a professional detective. Her exile made it impossible for her to kill them as well, making her the only person that could solve the mystery.
However, unlike many visual novel protagonists, Lady Love Dies isn’t a blank slate, even if you can influence what she says from time to time. I played her as someone who has been in exile forever and has thought a bit about what her class has done. She knows that they’re evil, and sure she feels like a bit of a victim, but she knows, deep down, that she isn’t. These humans they abduct are the victims.
I felt that, deep down, she knows that for this to be fixed she, and probably all the other Syndicate members, needs to die.
One of the few ways you can share these thoughts is through discussions with Shin U’thk Jiggath, a demon that has entered the island but hasn’t been found out by anyone but you.
Shin U’thk Jiggath, who tells you to call them Shinji, acts as a kind of conscience for Lady Love Dies. On my playthrough they felt like a voice that my thoughts were projected through. A prime example of this is when Shinji and Love Dies are discussing whether or not who slew the council was “evil”.
Love Dies spouts off some noble-sounding detective stuff, and Shinji says “the Syndicate is trying to resurrect a race of alien gods that enslaved man and fought millenia long wars. I don’t think you should be spouting off about evil.” As a player you can even tell Shinji that you agree! Things are fucked! However, Love Dies must solve this mystery first. Although, whether or not she does anything about this happens after the game ends.
The other two characters you can have discussions about the caste system with are Henry Division and One Last Kiss. Henry is your main suspect in the case, a demon-possessed citizen who is set up to take the fall for the killings, but maybe set up a bit too well. You can talk to a captured Henry as they spout off about how evil the island and the Syndicate is, and you can express regret and sympathy. Sometimes Henry tells you that isn’t enough, it doesn’t fucking matter (he uses “fuck” a lot), but sometimes he will be a bit hopeful. Even though he is destined to die before they move islands, he does hope for a future where things can be better for the citizens after him. One Last Kiss is a bit more of a radical insider, although I won’t spoil anything past that. She wants a changed order to prevent evils from occurring again, like the one that resulted in her death.
Without the ruling Syndicate and Council in Paradise Killer, humans wouldn’t be enslaved. Sure, maybe they’re a byproduct of their corrupt Gods, the same ones that waged war enslaving and using humans, but they are evil nonetheless.
Instead of using their divine God’s power to create this pocket dimension where they alone could live pampered lives and create conflict to fill the millennia, they could have used it for good. They have enough power to make at least 25 of these Island Sequences, they could trim a little off the top for the non-immortal humans. Maybe they keep a little, sure, but they could make these human’s lives irrevocably better. Think about what taxing your least favorite billionaire’s wealth 90% (looking at you Jeff Bezos) could do for the world? What good could you do with that wealth? In reference to Jeff Bezos, Kris Ligman actually created an entire game that tells you what you could do with it. If you thought of Bill Gates, there is a website that lets you simulate spending his money on random items. I’m sure that something similar is being created for Elon Musk as you read this as well.
Paradise Killer tells a foreboding story about a single path that can be taken from immense wealth — you can live for millennia, enslave humans to try and revive dead gods — yet still be left to toil in a never-ending cycle where demons invade your island, you need to kill all the humans off, and move on to do it all over again, all while not actually reviving any of those aforementioned gods!
Paradise Killer expertly lays out the intricacies of capitalist society without ever directly telling you, or Lady Love Dies, how to feel about the world at large. It trusts the player to draw their own conclusions about the world, even though the player themself cannot drastically change things. While some may find that unsatisfying, Lady Love Dies deals out justice however you’d like at the end, and the world building alone makes this game well worth playing.
