From time to time it can be fun to use an element in a story that doesn't belong to the genre, time, and culture the story plays in. For example in my current D&D campaign of Dungeon of the Mad Mage I took up a suggestion from the DotMM Companion to describe the mad mage, Halaster, as the presenter of a game show. So for the characters, Halaster is the mad mage of the title, as a game show makes no sense to the people living in a world of heroic fantasy. But to the players, Halaster is a bit more believable than somebody whose only explanation for his behavior is "he is mad". The anachronism is a deliberate break of the 4th wall, leading to a better story.

I just finished Horizon Zero Dawn, which is a story that is fundamentally based around anachronisms. A science-fiction story in which the characters are mostly tribal warriors with bow and spear. And while I could get into that setting at the start, I really didn't find the story at the end very believable. Because it isn't just the player who is able to identify the science-fiction elements. Somehow we are meant to believe that the main character, who grew up in a world without technology except for a smart-phone like object she found as a kid, is suddenly able to understand complicated technology well enough to do things like copying files or understanding how an AI works. The hand-waved explanation that this is due to "genetics" isn't convincing to me.

Anyway, I don't regret having bought the game, as I have played it for 60 hours, and at least the first three quarters of that were fun enough. I do feel that to some extent I "played it wrong" by not concentrating on story and side quests from the start. I thought that, like in Breath of the Wild, there would be enough game in the open world mechanics to enjoy much of the game while ignoring the story; I was wrong. I constantly bumped against the limitations of the game, the limited climbing system, the limited weapon choice. If I had played the game "as intended", those limitations would have been a bit less obvious. As a hunting / shooting game, Horizon Zero Dawn was fun enough, but I didn't really enjoy the parcours gameplay or the science-fiction story, and so I don't think I'll play the recently announced sequel.

- posted by Tobold @ 3:04 PM Permanent Link