ALL THE THINGS THAT COULD’VE BEEN
Choices. Who hasn’t looked at a pivotal moment in their life and wondered, “What if…?” What would have happened if I’d taken that job in Sacramento? What would my life be like if I’d settled down with my high school sweetheart instead of going away to college? Would I be strapped to a table in a serial killer’s basement lair right now struggling against my restraints if I hadn’t taken up the Doctor’s offer of a drink? Would Harvey “Two Face” Dent be leading a raid on my childhood home if I hadn’t slept with his then girlfriend, Catwoman, and left him to the Penguin’s cruel mercies? You know… the basic stuff.
The path not taken has a powerful and dangerous allure. Ruminating on all the things that could’ve been is a surefire way to lose yourself and rub the shine off your present happiness. We’ve seen a boom period in the last decade of interactive storytelling in video games that build out the narrative based on decisions made by the player. Some of them are self contained and others extend that story across episodes, seasons, and then ultimately, series. Committing to one path risks the dreaded FOMO or feeling of missing out.
I’m here to tell you to get over it. It’s important to stick by the choices you make. The only thing you’re missing out on is dulling the emotions that come with commitment to your life’s decisions. My philosophy is “one and done.” Sure, it’s fun to see what happens if you go left instead of right but there were reasons you went left and those reasons can’t be replicated. People are constantly changing and growing. You’re only the same person once and you only live once. I grew up in New Hampshire, where poet Robert Frost wrote some of his most well known work including one about taking the road less traveled. The poem famously ends with the lines:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
It’s a far less powerful sentiment if it ends like this:
Two roads diverged in the woods, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
then I thought, okay, now I’ll double back
and take the one more traveled by
see if maybe the outcome is a little different.
Doesn’t have quite the same dramatic punch, does it?
Warning: The following editorial features early game spoilers for The Walking Dead: Season 1, Batman: A Telltale Game, Dragon Age: Inquisition, The Witcher 3, Until Dawn, Heavy Rain,and Life is Strange.
NEVER FORGET
To understand how the branching narratives in today’s games work you must first understand something called “the butterfly effect.” No, not the 2004 Ashton Kutcher starring thriller of the same name, though you’d have a pretty good understanding of “the butterfly effect” were you to watch that film as well as how not to goth. Basically, it states that even a small thing like the beating of a butterfly’s wings, can have a cumulative effect across time that could result in, an exaggeration perhaps but, a hurricane. Modern choose your own adventure style video games translate this into, every little freakin’ thing you do matters. So choose wisely.
Telltale Games coined the term “______ will remember that” in their adventure game adaptation of Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead. This phrase was most famously applied to a short tempered, trucker cap wearing dad named Kenny whose allegiance to the main character, Lee Everett, is in constant turmoil. As Kenny faces down a series of Job like trials that threaten his wife, Katjaa, and their son, Duck, the player must pick a side. It can feel momentous but, as I will illustrate, it’s a bit of a fake out. In an early chapter, when Duck gets bitten by a walker, you can choose to err on the side of caution and align with the pragmatic Larry in favor of exile or stick by Kenny and “see where things go.” Neither choice is correct, necessarily. It’s more a matter of choosing between your heart and your head. Either way you go Duck lives and Larry dies. Your relationship with Kenny will be strengthened or damaged depending on how you choose to play the moment and follow up on your actions.
“Kenny will remember that” is a neat magic trick that convinces the player that the choices we make, really, every choice we make, will have major repercussions at some point down the line. In order to deliver the big dramatic moments expected of a series like The Walking Dead the games have to hit specific story beats; groups must splinter, opinions must differ, walkers must interrupt moments of zen-like peace. The problem is that often times the consequence of player choice results in little more than a character swap during a key scene. Does it matter in the long run whether, when you find Lee in a pinch surrounded by zombies, it is Kenny or Lilly who comes to his rescue? In order to really sell the drama someone has to.
Even in a more recent title like Batman, Telltale Games is still using the same tricks. You can treat Alfred like shit, spurn Catwoman’s advances, choose to save Harvey Dent but regardless of what you do, the game ends on roughly the same note with everything reset to status quo for the next adventure. Harvey is going to become Two Face, no matter how you labor to change his fate. The difference you make is in how you get there and what hidden sides to the story you can discover that will feed your own personal narrative. You could play again to see how things might’ve been different but all that will do is reveal the ugly gears beneath the beautiful chrome exterior of this machine. Trust me. It’s better to remain blissfully unaware of how little your choices ultimately mattered.
LOVE, REIGN O’ER ME
When my 250 hour stay in the world of The Witcher 3 and its wonderful expansions came to an end, my Geralt of Rivia had retired to a lovely chateau in wine country, contented but loveless. I’d been given ample opportunity to find true love for Geralt in the form of a pair of sorceresses vying for his heart; his old flame and fiery redhead, Triss, and the darkly seductive brunette, Yennefer, who may be his epic endgame. The game makes it clear you can pursue either of them but it never quite gets around to telling you that there’s serious blowback if you go for both. Guess which I did? What has two thumbs and is chained to a bed being berated by the foppish Dandelion? This guy. Serves me right.
In a game as long as The Witcher 3 the best way to go back on your decisions is to create multiple save files. I did this once during a side quest in which you investigate some ruins on a haunted island and set about reuniting a forlorn spirit with her one true love. As with most of the Witcher 3’s side content, the story has many unexpected twists and turns casting a shadow over even the brightest story developments. The first time I set the ghost free, I soon discovered that years of bitterness turned this once innocent soul into a demon and I had doomed an entire neighboring village to the plague. Hilarious as it was seeing everyone simultaneously come down with an ominous sniffle, I needed to know what the outcome would’ve been if I’d brought the lovers together so I restarted from an earlier point. This time I convinced the runaway beau to return with me to his lover’s waiting, bony arms and well, ick. I should’ve left love and its many splinters alone.
When my female Inquisitor began a youthful dalliance with the former lyrium junkie and current straight-edge Templar, Cullen, it was the right time in her life for regret. Now, I look back on that early and ill-fated Dragon’s Age: Inquisition romance and my eyes nearly roll out of my head. What a naive fool my Inquisitor was to think that man was ready to have a serious relationship with anyone. Inquisition tells the tale of a young woman plucked by fate and imbued with the divine power to close monster portals. Throughout her adventure she builds alliances, defends nations, vanquishes demonic enemies, learns from the world’s great leaders, and sleeps with a giant beast and an annoying elf or two. If you constantly worry about what you have to gain from wooing and bedding everything with a pulse, it belittles her journey. I’m glad she got Cullen out of the way early, because even if the stoic Blackwall was often a wet blanket, he was warm bodied, loyal and supportive. Who you choose to be with and when is just as important as who you ultimately end up with and what sweet swag they leave you carrying.
DON’T FEAR THE REAPER
From our earliest interactions with video games we are taught to fear the game over, the death state. Hearing the familiar descending latin notes of Mario’s life loss song, sends a shiver down the backs of even the toughest, battle hardened gamers. Video games are about progress after all, and how can you move things forward when you’re dead? This instinct carries over into games in which you can, by product of your decisions, cause (or be the cause of) the death of a character but you shouldn’t fear the reaper because loss is a part of good, narrative storytelling. Just look at Disney films dating all the way back to Bambi, who loses his mother to hunters in the beginning of the film but then, spoiler alert, goes on to marry Faline, have fawns of his own and becomes the new Prince of the Forest. How high is the pile of deceased (or missing at sea) mothers and fathers laid down as the foundation of a Disney hero or heroine’s backstory?
Of course, you’re supposed to want to try and save them all. The developers are counting on that to ramp up the dramatic tension. The would be victims of the interactive teen slasher flick, Until Dawn, may grate on the nerves at times but unless you really don’t like how the brainy and bitchy Emily mistreats her placeholder boyfriend Matt (something you can influence by selecting actions and dialogue that give Matt a spine), you want to see these kids survive their crazy night in the snowy woods.
Early on the horny jock, Mike, and the flirty mean girl, Jess, end up taking refuge in the proverbial cabin in the woods. If you play your cards right (you need to woo her to underpants city among other things,) you have a slim chance of saving Jess from a gruesome mauling and then death. However, knowing which cards to play is damn near impossible on your first try. Instead, you make every effort to play Mike how you think he should be played. In my case, I wouldn’t let Mike go easy on Jess. She seemed more than capable of handling herself so I hit her with every snowball and practical joke I could and then revealed my softer side once her barriers were down. Despite seemingly doing everything right, the panic got to me once Jess was sucked out the window by a shadowy thing in the night and I missed one too many quick time events in a row. So, I got to watch on helplessly as Jess took an express elevator to hell.
I could’ve gone back and tried again, but I didn’t. My thinking was that I lost Jess fair and square. Who was I to say that loss won’t eventually be more important than keeping her in play. Both Mike and I learned from the experience and did our damndest not to let it happen again. Of course, it did. Several more times. I lost a bunch of kids including one super cheap death in the final moments that cost me my, then, favorite.
It’s not just Until Dawn’s cast of expendable characters who faced death because of my ineptitude. In Heavy Rain, David Cage’s gripping procedural drama, you play as four different main characters; Ethan, Norman, Scott and Maidson (the sole female of the group.) In a true game changer, it’s possible to get to the end of the story without any of them coming out alive. I still remember being shellshocked when my actions lead to trauma survivor and investigative reporter, Madison Paige, breaking every bone in her body during a harrowing apartment fire sequence. As, she fell out the window and to her untimely death I sat there, struck dumb, staring at the reset button wondering if I should try again. It seemed almost unreal that a character I had been in control of, who had an integral role yet to fill in this story could be gone. Every path her life could’ve followed was now closed to me. I carried that heavy loss with me all the way to the final showdown, and though I also lost Norman to a grinder (looking back it seems inevitable as this was, I believe, the third grinder he almost fell victim to) it transformed the way I played and raised the tension on every decision and split second gameplay moment hence. Bad things happen, how we respond to them defines who we are.
ALL THAT IS LOST
Life is Strange, perhaps understands this best. The game begins when the main character, Max, averts a tragedy in an art school bathroom. By rewinding time with a sudden and mysterious super power, Max prevents her estranged childhood friend, Chloe, from being shot by the loose cannon preppie and thus kicks off a series of time manipulating mystery solving. At first, the game encourages you to second guess every decision you make and try to work out the best possible outcome, even if that means wasting your god-like power to win over the teens in your class and become Miss Popular. Meanwhile, the game trickles blink-and-you’ll-miss-them interactive moments that will affect the story farther down the line constantly asking the player if the time we spend shaming the mean girl, Victoria or preventing the nerdy girl from getting her face smashed in by a football is worth the effort. We’ve all heard the phrase, with great power, comes great responsibility…
Well, this isn’t that.
Life is Strange appears to be heading in that direction during its first two chapters but then the player reaches a crisis point with a character named Kate, and Life is Strange reveals its grand fraud. This isn’t a game about the choices you make with your super powers, it’s a game about the choices you make without them. With no power, comes greater responsibility, if you will. At the end of chapter 2, the bill for all your trivial decision making comes due. Did you learn enough about, your distraught, bullied classmate Kate? Did you chisel through her off-putting judgmental act, to see her pain? Did you do anything about it? Did you say the right things? Give her the right advice? When she’s standing on the ledge, and suddenly Max is working without the benefit of her time rewinding powers, with no safety net, you get the answer to these questions. Either you talk her down or… you don’t.
I couldn’t save her.
I tried and I failed and then I cried. I could’ve started the game over but I refused to. Are you sensing a pattern here? I lost Kate because I didn’t know I was going to lose her. That’s life. We do our best, and sometimes we fail. Life is Strange brilliantly lulled me into a false sense of security. Max’s world seemed like one free from consequence and then suddenly and without warning, it wasn’t and I had to grow the fuck up. Sure, her powers came back but when they did, Max was a changed girl. Instead of worrying about whether she was doing the right thing at every junction, she did what she thought was best and used her powers to protect those she cared for. Rewinding time was no longer a crutch I could lean on, it was just another way to solve problems. Max’s real power became her heart. Even in the end, I made the difficult decision to do the selfless thing. Losing Kate had made me realize just how childish I had been.
IN CONCLUSION
In preparation for this article, I recently replayed all of Heavy Rain and what I found most remarkable was that despite having lived eight years since my first playthru and now being father of a child myself, I was making a lot of the exact same decisions, though perhaps playing a bit more skillfully during the quick time style events. What that told me was that I made those decisions because I was being true to myself, whether that meant making choices I myself would make, or making choices true to what I thought made sense for the characters.
The point is… I can’t change who I am. I may have grown a bit over the years, but I still believe Bruce Wayne would be kind to Alfred, Matt would stand up to Emily, things would never work out between my Elfen Inquisitor and a junkie Templar, Max would change the dry erase board outside Kate’s room, and Ethan wouldn’t kill a man whether his son was in mortal danger or not. Choosing any path but the one that feels truest to me feels like a lie and, yeah, it sounds pretentious but I don’t come to games like this for lies. I come for some approximation of human truth. That’s what makes them so fascinating to me.
When games like these offer you infinite do-overs, before you accept them, think instead, “What would Robert Frost do?” Forge ahead, never look back.
UPDATE: As I was going to publish, the demo for Detroit: Become Human released and articles like this were written extolling the virtues of the game’s flow chart which tracks your progress along the branching paths and provides a handy roadmap for finding access to the next “path not taken.” Quantic Dreams have always suggested that players may desire to replay a scene for a different outcome but the flow chart further encourages the player to treat the narrative experience like a child’s electronic toy; to be turned over and over again until it vomits out all its secret sounds and hidden rooms. This kind of intense gamification trivializes the narrative impact of the life and death story being told. Already people are comparing ghoulish notes and sharing that they tried to get everyone, including the young girl, killed during the demo’s short hostage negotiation scene. I’m not necessarily against this as a technique for selling the game’s possibilities because this is just a 15 minute slice with no clue as to how what happens in that apartment will impact the greater story or the player’s emotional state. In that regard, letting players see that their actions will change the course of the story in dramatic ways is fine. However, I hope the flow chart is not in the main game or at least is not accessible during a first play through and I hope the game isn’t quite so obnoxious about pressing the player to try the same scenario again. We don’t need to constantly be reminded we’re playing a game, thats antithesis to what makes Quantic Dreams experiences work.
