Summary
There’s a reason why violence is so widespread in video games. Action is flashy, visceral, and perhaps most importantly, the easiest conflict/resolution dynamic to sell at a glance: stop the bad guys before they stop the player, it’s as simple as that!
But as the medium matured, the artists behind the art began to wonder what their games should be saying about bloodshed and barbarity, even in a virtual world. Whether through subtle game mechanics or the story’s overall message, these action-packed games drop high-octane thrills and heavy questions about the spilling of blood.
8Dishonored
For a game that, on the face of it, is about revenge,Dishonoredactually stands as a shining example of tidy, bloodless conflict resolution. Without the option of being able to split open the necks of the men responsible for the Empress' murder, her daughter’s kidnapping and Corvo’s good name besmirched on the table, the non-violent means to complete missions would ring hollow.
Instead, punishing the culprits without drawing a sword evokes a sense of “reclaimed honor,” demonstrating the benefits of restraint that no other medium could convey. On top of this, an excessive kill count results in high chaos for the city. Rats feed on the dead and multiply. The player’s violence spreads,creating dark and unintentional consequencesfor the whole of Dunwall’s population.
The name alone really sets the uninitiated up for subverted expectations. While much ofBullyis about setting up pranks, starting (and ending) fistfights, and generally getting into no good, it’s by no means a school scourge simulator. The story follows Jimmy as he tries to uproot the bullying gripping Bullworth Academy.
Rather than dominating weaker students, the game takes a look at the dynamics of power relations in small ecospheres like high schools, the positive outcomes of solidarity, and even some messaging about standing up to bullies. Even when Jimmy gains power for himself,he almost becomes the villain himself, learning a valuable lesson about what it really means to be a good leader.
Bleak, unforgiving, and complex: the morality ofThe Last of Us: Part 2goes beyond denouncing violence as evil but instead lets the player sink into it. The brutal nature of the fights (firefights and up close and personal, from shootouts to cut-throating) slowly turns the player from a regular killer out for revenge into a full-blown monster.
After a certain point, beyond the paranoia and stress of constantly coming under attack, the killings begin to feel heavy and futile rather than glamorous or exciting. Although the killings are scriptedand even distasteful to some, this is, in a way, a great anti-violence message in itself, as every kill hammers home the dark and, ultimately, the sad reality of chasing revenge.
5Age Of Decadence
For most RPGs, slaughtering countless waves of enemies is par for the course, creating such terms as “grinding” and “farming” to describe slaying thousands of people or monsters in one sitting for an incremental reward. However, Age of Decadence goes for a more realistic approach to fighting and survival in every single fight.
Rather than being able to slay a horde in one moment and chat with every NPC the next, the player has to think carefully about what kind of person they are going to be, asthis RPG is uncompromisingly difficultand does not hesitate to remind players what really drops in a fight: bodies (and all too often, it’s the player’s).
It’s not often players get to see action stars age in games like they might in Hollywood blockbusters (and, in this case, not exactly gracefully).Max Payne 3was not only a kick-ass shooter but a real and often times melancholic look into the life of a video game protagonist dealing with the consequences of years of violence, injury, and all the mental trauma that brings.
Max’s lifestyle (mostly involving pulling off deadly, forward-falling, bullet-time headshots) has left him bitter and broken, with a painkiller addiction to boot. While Max’s story makes foran intense, adrenaline-fueled ride from start to finish, Rockstar pulls no punches in depicting violence (and the consequences of that violence) as grimly possible.
3Killer 7
Stylish, bizarre, and soaked in blood: one of the many ways to describeKiller 7. But beneath the ultra-violent and ultra-stylish cel-shaded surface lies a message about violence (at least, in some interpretations of the game’s richly interpretive plot).
Killer 7depicts an exaggerated, absurdist picture of violence, satirizing the then-omnipresent war on terror media narrative. As the game plays out, the game’s explanation of the conflict the player finds themselves in becomes increasingly vague, mirroring the contemporary confusion and frenzy of politics and culture at the time of its release.
2Metal Gear Solid Series
Around the time of the release ofMetal Gear Solid 4,Hideo Kojima went on the record about violence, saying that “violence in games should be more realistic.” He didn’t say this because he thought high-resolution gore would be “epic” but because he felt that gamers should feel the full weight of their actions on the battlefield rather than pass over other human beings' bodies or wounds.
This translates into his game design philosophy, as pretty muchevery one of his games can be beaten non-lethally. The themes of theMetal Gear Solidseries each always had a lot (in some cases, hours) to say about war, the human condition, nuclear proliferation, and finding better ways for humans to live than through perpetual violence.
Probably the most famous example of looking under the hood of military shooters isSpec Ops: The Line. In any other game of the same ilk, the player would follow the same objectives and prompts, and after roughly 40 or so hours, they would be labeled a hero and given all the achievements worthy of such skill and head-shot finesse.
Not so with thisanti-war, anti-violence masterpiece, which prompts its players to reconsider all their instincts as a gamer and a human being. Without spoiling too much, it’s a deep dive into how blindly following orders can lead to some Geneva-convention-breaking screw-ups and a completely broken psyche.
