What steps are you taking to disassociate the main characters in Crysis from the typical super soldier image? How far will you be going to prevent a "Master Chief" syndrome?
Well, the truth is, I don’t think you even have to go that far – you just have to treat your audience with respect, treat them like intelligent adults, and not try to sell them some warmed-over kid’s-morning-cartoon stereotypical excuse for a story. I mean, let’s be clear: Crysis is a shooter, so your player character needs to be some kind of warrior/soldier – that’s axiomatic, if you want the game fiction to work, that’s the line you’re going to take. But that doesn’t mean we abandon our brains and finer emotional sensibilities at the door and step into the same old bull****, gung-ho, doin’-it-for-Daddy, teenage boy’s wet-dream of super-power. Soldiers are real people, as human as you or I. They suffer from doubt, fear, anxiety, pain and confusion just like anybody else. They find themselves in situations they don’t understand, taking orders they’re maybe not happy with, wondering what the hell is going on. They pay an emotional price – often a heavy one – for the things that they do. Anything they achieve comes at a cost. And – here’s the crucial bit, the adult bit, if you like – how they respond to that is exactly what makes them interesting. Human frailty is what makes us feel something for other human beings, whether in fiction or reality. Unless you’re some kind of emotional cripple, what possible engagement is there in a totally competent, totally fearless, totally strong and totally righteous superhero? All the best superhero stories are about the flaws and failings in that superhero’s character, the things that make them not super-heroic, but human. So the simple trick in avoiding – your choice of words, not mine! – “Master Chief” syndrome is to give your characters some weaknesses, some fears and uncertainties, some signs that they’re up against their limits and suffering as a result. In other words, give them some messy grown-up humanity, something a mature and smart audience can get their teeth into, and then show the cost to those characters in achieving their goals. That’s it, that’s the whole trick, that’s what we’ll be doing. It isn’t actually that complicated, but it does, as I said, require the simple step of respecting your audience as intelligent adults. Shame it seems so hard for so many games to take that simple step.
