Pacifistic! | Pacifism in different games

Good day to everyone! Today, I would like to talk about pacifism in games. Not just about pacifism for the sake of Achvka, or more precisely, we are attacked about the reward of the player for observing pacifism. Spoilers It will be minimized. Really serious spoilers will be for DX: MD, Sifu, Mgs and Spec Ops: The Line. You will learn how pacifism can conflict with the plot and gameplay, how the game punishes you for excessive cruelty, how pacifism can affect the gameplay and how the game in which pacifism is not, on the contrary, it promotes it. And one more thing: at the end there will be an important announcement.

II part | Pacifism in most games.

I think to explain what pacifism is – not worth. No, well, if you study in the first grade, then pacifism is when uncles and aunts do not want to do bad things with other people, but for more adults, pacifism is when a person does not want to arrange a crazy massacre. But not the point.

As for me, in most games, pacifism can be added exclusively for show, for example, as in ACU. There is just a heavy weapon that cuts off opponents, but you will have to kill the main goals. Also, pacifism can be introduced for the sake of ac. For example, the same PREY, but, I could be mistaken. Some games do not reward the player at all. As an example, Watch Dogs 2.

In addition, there is a so -called ludonarratic dissonance. An example of this, Bioshock, when the plot is about kindness and pacifism, and gameplay is far from about pacifism.

And we will not exclude games in which there are 2 endings, one of which can be opened by the game by a pacifist, for example, Sifu . Yes, the same one that made SG suffer. This is not my quote.

But still there are games in which pacifism is better implemented. In all other cases, your pacifism is not rewarded. In the best case, the reward is Achivka, and in the following cases, the influence of murders is more noticeable.

III part | Immirsiv-Sims

Let’s start, so to speak, with the base. Deus Ex: Mankind Divated. Yes, I adore it and passed it 8 times. But not the point. In it, unlike DX: HR, pacifism affects the plot. Starting from influence on gameplay, for example, in add. mission “010111000”, ending not with a direct influence on the plot.

In the first case, depending on our https://1redcasino.uk/ choice, in the final of the mission, we will fight with a certain number of opponents. That is, if we cut down the PIK agent in the store, and not kill or warn, then he will go into our apartment with some agent.

In the second case, we can interfere with the death of Alison Stanek, and also spare Marchenko. And if in the second case, the consequences are clear in the long run, then in the first case, if Alison is alive, not only we do not become the goal of the father’s attacks, but we can also get a deactivator of Bombiles, which affects the gameplay.

I previously talked about the fact that in most games, pacifism affects the ending. Many of course remembered about Dishonored, but not everything is so simple there. Firstly, passing a pacifist, which is interesting, because in addition to the standard non-lethal methods, you can publish dirty secrets of the target, which is why TU will arrest.

And secondly, the city has the so-called “level of chaos”, which rises if you decide to arrange a massacre. And this very “level of chaos” interferes with the player himself, for example, adding plague rats.

Nevertheless, pacifism is one of the key details of the immersive-symam that is present in the genre in most cases. But where you definitely do not expect attention to pacifism – so it is in games mainly with a militarian theme.

IV part | Pacifism through the plot

In this part, we will analyze 2 approaches to the disclosure of pacifism using the plot. One of them is less straightforward, the other is more straightforward. And yet, let’s start.

I think about Metal Gear Solid you heard from every iron. Naturally, because kozima genius. Of course, in his games there is gameplay pacifism. As the most striking example, I’ll take mgs3. If briefly, then at one of the moments of the plot, we meet the ghosts of the people whom we killed throughout the way until this moment. If you touch them, then they will take the player an impressive part of health from the player.

But besides this, the anti -war motif was conceived into the plot, which Kojima partially said:

The words “anti -war” and “anti -tank weapons” were the main in the entire series. My parents were born during World War II. My generation grew, listening to the stories about the war. From films and books, we learned about all the destructiveness and absurdity of war and nuclear weapons. Video games are ideal for “struggle” and “competitions”, but even if so, I thought that they could also carry something anti-war. And more importantly, this is necessary. Also, I wanted to change the idea that games were created only for shooting and fights.

Enemies of ideologies. Good and evil. There is no such thing as absolute justice or absolute destruction. I wanted players to survive the fate and thoughts of the characters for which they played by changing the priorities of good and evil. Therefore, I created a big boss, “evil” and the enemy for the “correct and fair” solid Snape from MGS and MGS2.

Hideo Kojima

In MGS we play for different characters, in view of which we see different prospects of the same events. As an example, take Big Boss. He progressed from a patriot, to a person who is trying to prevent victims to a person who believes that there is no sacrifice. And as a result, the antagonist comes to restraint with nuclear weapons, which, according to the protoganist, is a bad method, but this method works for peace between the parties.

For some, the boss version may seem inhuman, and for someone, very prudent and witty. Nevertheless, the MGS stands more for various opinions for the battle of ideologies, but another game, uses a simpler, but nevertheless effective approach.

You guessed – this is Spec Ops: The Line. There is a bunch of various analysis and reviews on the Internet, but not to say about it in this article, I cannot.

The game begins like an ordinary shooting shooting shooting, Ala Call of Duty that people play, for the most part, to relax. That is, without thinking, they shoot at targets. And then, the developers made a simple and smart decision – to show everything directly. In other words, all romanticized things sometimes do terribly realistic. The standard shelling of the territory with bombs turns into one of the most memorable scenes in the princippe games, where it turns out that the protagonist is not such a hero. When the player sees the consequences of the decision of the main “hero “, The feeling of the game for the “good guy who goes against the badness” disappears.

If you try to formulate the used approach, then this is a show of all horrors, as if calling for stopping this. Again, the anti -war motif is only 1 from the game. Well, now, it’s time to come to an end.

V part | Results

I don’t even know what can be said. But still, I will try. Pacifism in many games, as I said earlier, is only rudiment. Additional Achivka, good ending. As elsewhere, there are exceptional examples, but this is a needle in a haystack. Unfortunately.

Well, that’s all. Write comments, leave your assessment of the article and so on. Thank you all, I went.