Ark of the Lost Angels

In Katherine Isbister’s article “Nonplayer Characters – ‘Living, Breathing’ Others in the Game World” she asserts that “Accomplished game developers use a range of social cues from NPCs to produce feelings in players, putting NPCs into powerful and consequent social relationships with the player/avatar.”

This idea is something I have noticed in my many years of gaming. Throughout the Modern Warfare trilogy of Call of Duty games, I formed an emotional bond with John “Soap” MacTavish, first as the player character of Call of Duty 4, and then as the captain and leader of the sequel’s character, Gary ‘Roach’ Sanderson, and as the second in command to his former captain, John Price, in the third installment. The entire series has no elements of choice, but the emotional impact that both Price and I felt when Soap was killed off in the third game of the trilogy was undeniable.

In the Mass Effect games, choice was a crucial part of the game, and despite playing Mass Effect 3 first, I went back and played the trilogy and was forced to make the infamous decision on Virmire of saving Ashley or Kaiden. my first playthrough, starting with Mass Effect 3, I chose to save Ashley in the character creator menu. However, going back, and playing the full trilogy, I eventually decided to save Kaiden because his character was more enjoyable to me, and having gotten to know Ashley, I felt she understood the kind of risks she was taking as a career soldier. Practically speaking, Kaiden’s abilities were handier for me to keep going forward for the third game.

It should come as no surprise then, that when playing The Walking Dead, my decision making was no different. I chose to save the kid at the farm because it was a natural, protective, parental instinct, especially for someone playing as a character who is looking out for a young child. And I weighed my options with each choice despite realizing after the first few choices, the decisions don’t matter as much in the grand scheme of things.

It was an extension of the lessons that Soap and Mass Effect taught me. Despite knowing that Soap’s death is coming in each subsequent playthough of Modern Warfare 3, I still get emotional when I play that scene because of how effective the emotional bond was between the character and the player, especially when only one of those entities had emotions to begin with. And in Mass Effect, having to make the choice for emotional reasons as well as practical ones was a feeling that came back while playing the Walking Dead. It was hard letting Doug die, but Carley had the gun and was good with it, so from a practical standpoint, it made sense, and I felt a sense of obligation to all of the other characters to give them the best fighting chance at making it out of the zombie apocalypse alive.