The Impact of a Death

Most video games are violent: Call of Duty and its murder of brain cells, FIFA with its brutal abuse of an innocent sphere or Little Big Planet and its eager dismemberment of level design. Violence is ever-present in video games and is probably unavoidable lest we play Cooking Mama forever (but then what of those poor animals we're cooking?). It is not, however, the violence in games that is my issue, it is the killing. There are games that cast you into the role of an insignificant soldier who murders hundreds of other insignificant soldiers until an insignificant soldier murders him (or now, incredibly, her) but there are also games that cast you into the role of a fully developed character with a history and ties who murders hundreds of insignificant NPCs. And that's fine, that's the purpose of insignificant NPCs – EXP, loot, points, something to use bullets on. My problem arises when after murdering hundreds of insignificant NPCs the game kills a significant (for the sole virtue of being connected to the protagonist) NPC and whispers “Isn't that just awful?” Well, yes, yes it is. It's awful that you've made me murder hundreds or thousands of insignificant NPC who all had their insignificant NPC lives but you ask me to care about the one NPC who you spent 25 minutes of gameplay/cutscenes characterising. Don't ask me to sympathise with a mass-murderer unless he is driven by some sort of moral code which justifies the killing in his own psychotic mind. If the character doesn't even attempt to justify the killing then he's simply a sociopath.

I have had this issue with The Last of Us and more recently with Mafia II. If I spend 95% of the game murdering people, only the deaths of the protagonist or his inevitable side-kick can have ANY impact. A game that understands the balance of death is Yakuza. Now, Yakuza is a very violent series but also shows glimpses of self-awareness about its own violent nature. There is an interesting exchange after the protagonist, Kazuma Kiryu, beats the shit out of his friend, Dojima Daigo, to convince him to do his bidding. Daigo makes a joke about Kiryu always using violence and Kiryu says that it's the only way he knows – that's self-awareness. The devs know that the use of violence for every situation is ridiculous and play up to that fact through their main character. Where Yakuza finds the balance of death is in not killing. You don't kill any insignificant NPCs (well, you can shoot them in the later stages but nobody seems to really die) or significant NPCs. The game, through cutscenes, kills several significant NPCs in each instalment instead. This gives the deaths more impact on the account that they are deaths alone and further weight is added when you consider the characters who die, particularly in the first installment. Every death is a 'moment'. Every death has an impact on both the world and the characters in it. Every death takes away a fully developed character. In a sense, Yakuza is the pacifist among violent games. Sure, you beat the shit out of hundreds of insignificant NPCs, but you let them go after they pay you to stop beating the shit out of them. Sure, people die, but when they do it leaves a mark.