Dear Telltale Games,
First and foremost, I want to recognize how necessary of an evil you are. You came to the world when we had RPG's, FPS's, RTS's, MMO's, and MOBA's. In the 21st century, we had every kind of game, with every kind of story to supplement the lack of cohesive storytelling in our real world and every kind of killing. But we didn't yet have games based solely around player choices affecting the story progression, and Telltale, since then you've monopolized it. I have to hand it to you: you know what works, and you know how to stick to that formula, having chugged out first The Walking Dead, then The Wolf Among Us (and others) and now Game of Thrones.
Some years ago, creating games like this wouldn't have worked. Even now, I find it pretty incredible. When I look at a game, my criteria is the following: does the game have good gameplay? If so, I will put the game into my disk tray and I will embark. But if the game doesn't have a credible, realistic, or gritty enough story line, I won't keep it after I'm finished, if I finish, and I won't pay it a second thought. Then, as an afterthought, I consider the graphical fidelity. Notice how gameplay is the first telling sign? But Telltale completely throws out gameplay for petty quick-time theatrics... but still releases largely successful titles. All the more, props to you, Telltale. Considering that the graphics are daft and gameplay bugs out at times, downgrading from cheap and repetitive to incompetent, it is a greater testament to the seamless excellence of the story. And, after all, it's the story that keeps us coming back for more...
Abuse, as the case would be in Game of Thrones. Not only does the story expand upon GRRM's book canon and D&D's show canon, but it would almost completely pull it off if the others didn't exist. Of course, if Game of Thrones didn't exist, where would Telltale get the idea of creating a House as a foil to the Starks, bound and damned by honor, doomed to fall to the treachery of the Boltons. As they would have it, the crowning joy is the choices, the loaded, dire, choice-less choices that we the player have to make. To be fair, though, before Game of Thrones was an apple in its mother Telltale's eye, the evil gleam was there, the tendency to make us play God over the fate of characters. When combined with gritty Westeros and the notoriety that the HBO show has gained for shameless massacring of characters, both at the behest of Almighty Martin and free of his influence, only one thing can come of it... tears.
So, here I am, after completing episode 5, titled "Nest of Vipers." I've played through it twice, having made the choice once and, distraught with it, reversing it. And I can only look up at the person who put me through this, or the entity, I should say. I'm sitting at Telltale's feet. I've been kicked down, and I can't get up. I can't forget the pain, and I won't forget it. And I can't heal. I can only sit here and take it until episode 6 comes out, or next season, or whenever the onslaught ends.
All the melodrama aside, I really think Telltale has a problem, a will, an urge, a hunger to put authority in our hands over fictional beings to damn them at our pleasure. But it's not at our pleasure, of course. We don't choose to deliver justice or mercy or forgiveness. That is, we don't get a choice in enacting any sort of behavior that confirms our humanity. Our conscience is always enclosed by two cheese graters, because we can only save one of two worthy persons, and we have to judge the merit of these fictional humans. We have to say "what's this person's value to the narrative?" Or "what makes this person indispensable in my eyes?" In episode 1 of The Walking Dead, it's an easy call. We haven't been introduced to the two characters long enough, and there's no history or chemistry or even character motivation to make the choice hard. It's a matter of deciding which character you care about less. So, naturally, I chose to save the hot girl. Well, to be honest, a girl can only look so hot with cel-shaded graphics. But in 5 episodes of Game of Thrones, a lot of attachment can build up to the characters, and it's dreadfully cruel to make an innocent player disrupt their conscience and the toy with the results and try to strike the best balance. There's something wicked about it, when done right, and I can't be the only one that notices that.
In movies or TV, or in books, we are merely spectators. Video games afford us a certain delusion that we are filling in the shoes of the protagonist. Many games appeal to our new identities that they instill in us, and that's why they sell. Nobody needs to be told that video games aren't real, but still... in a very real way, games paint a world that's accurate enough to make us adopt it, at least for a time, and our emotional centers are tied to the story.
And that's why a problem arises with ethical choices in games, not with the stark black and white ones, but with the abstract gray. BioShock has a moral choice: devour or save. Game of Thrones has a moral choice, also. Either devour one person or devour another. Preferably devour the most deserving of a good devouring, but the choice is really up to you, and that's why it's called a choice-based game. For two reasons I find fault with this second model, and with its implementation in this last episode.
First, it betrays the narrative. If we are to really be immersed in a video game as a character, we have to have our control limited to that character. With Game of Thrones letting us control multiple characters, we get to a point where we have to choose between them, not as a character, but as a puppeteer manipulating the situation. This interrupts the story flow and betrays the intent of giving the player a chance to make decisions for a character and see out their consequences. All this characterization is thrown aside so that we can step outside of both characters' bodies and play judge, jury, and executioner. The credibility of the story is wrecked by not acting from the character's motivation but from arbitrary ethical judgment that will be weighed in episodes to come. Let's just hope that my call was the same random one that the developers think is the best. Is this a game? Yeah, a guessing game.
Second, the circumstances leading up to the choice are contrived to a bloody pulp. While we play as Rodrik, every decision that we make damns us in the eyes of one of our advisers (whichever one we didn't choose to be our Sentinel). If I don't mess up one, I'll mess up another. It's as if the character is static and the story is predestined (oh wait, it is). The spurned adviser never lets up, and never forgives an affront. He is made to lack empathy for the sole purpose of being the person that sells my plans to the Whitehills, which in turn puts me in the cheese grating position of deciding which character I like more or which one is more critical to the story. And need I mention? Betrayals, when not developed with believable motivation, are trite, bland, and cliche. It's as if some people think that betrayal in and of itself is a strong story element and stands on its own merit. Spoiler: it isn't and doesn't.
So, Telltale, I think your formula is near perfect. However, I see the chink in your armor when it comes to setting up hugely critical choices like the one in episode 5. It was weak and unnecessary, and it made me very sad. So maybe it's time to lay the whole "we need one HUGE decision to decide the fate of two characters" to rest. If you can't make a game without an obligatory moral quandary, maybe you are just the sociopath that Dan and Dave at HBO are. It's pretty despicable to build up characters to simply further the plot and knock 'em down like bowling pins at a minute's notice and leave fans and gamers to piece together what set their undoing in motion.
Love, Jonny
P.S. Quit the pretenses, Telltale. You killed those characters, not me. Don't put a smoking gun in my hand here. You made me choose between two characters that I loved, hoping that I'd puzzle on the complexities of life and go pump something beneficial that I gleaned back into society. Instead, I just think you're mental.
P.P.S. I still love your work.
