The moment that inspired this question:
A long time ago I was playing an MMO called Voyage of the Century Online. A major part of the game was sailing around on a galleon ship and having naval battles in the 1600s.
The game basically allowed you to sail around all of the oceans of the 1600s world and explore. The game was populated with a lot of NPC ships that you could raid and pick up its cargo for loot.
One time, I was sailing around the western coast of Africa and I came across some slavers. This was shocking to me at the time, and I was like “oh, I’m gonna fuck these racist slavers up!”
I proceed to engage the slave ship in battle and win. As I approach the wreckage, I’m bummed out because there wasn’t any loot. Like every ship up until this point had at least some spare cannon balls or treasure, but this one had nothing.
… then it hit me. A slave ship’s cargo would be… people. I sunk this ship and the reason there wasn’t any loot was because I killed the cargo. I felt so bad.
I just sat there for a little while and felt guilty, but I always appreciated that the developers included that detail so I could be humbled in my own self-righteousness. Not all issues can be solved with force.
I think a lot of the genericness is part of it.
It’s supposed to feel like every other game, until it doesn’t. The name, the plot, the art, the genetic cover shooter gameplay. It’s even got Nolan North voicing the main character.
I think the first time I noticed something was amiss was when some civilian darted out in front of me and I riddled her with bullets. No red X’s, no “do not kill civilians” messages. Just the game silently going “well, I won’t tell if you don’t…”
The genericness was very much a large component.
People don’t realize that gaming used to have a lot of “Well, this is sort of like X which I liked so I guess I’ll play it”. That is how we had stuff like the Codemasters version of Operation Flashpoint and so forth. Saints Row and True Crime were this to GTA. The multiple Medal of Honor reboots were this to CoD. And so forth. Hell, the fricking Camilla Ludgarden Tomb Raiders were this to Uncharted (… which was that to Tomb Raider). As opposed to these days where people can’t stop talking about how much they hated Outer Worlds for… making an “elder scrolls” game closer to Fallout 3 than Skyrim.
Which is what makes things “work”. You get a new gun. Time for your obligatory Uncharted style “kill 300 people with this” trophy. Oh no, it is the obnoxious turret sequence. Oh cool, we are doing an airship sequence with these mortars…
Because it is less “Wow, soldiers are assholes” and more “So… remind me. Why did you want to play this? Why did you leap at the opportunity to play a generic ‘murder brown people’ game?”
Which is also why we will NEVER see another game like this. A B-game built around “the twist” that actually encourages the player to question themselves. Release that today and… you get the responses this post got. “Well, I was always above it all so it didn’t impact me” and open discussion of The Twist.
Because when an indie game does this? Oh, golf clap. Really nice but not my thing. When a “mainstream” game does it? #NotAllGamers and this was just a shitty Call of Duty and I hear that they got Clint Eastwood’s son in the new one and that is gonna be so lit.