First Person Shooters are a powerhouse in the gaming market, and have been for as long as I can remember. Call of Duty and Battlefield still sell like hotcakes, and two of the most highly acclaimed games from the past decade, Bioshock and Half-Life 2, are of the same genre. The FPS just seems to have an irresistible charm about it that lures gamers of all interests, because there’s so much that can be done with that kind of perspective.
On the topic of perspective, one of the things that more defines the story of an FPS is its approach to the player’s character, and the narrative voice used. By narrative voice, I’m referring to the involvement, or overall presence of the main character in the story. Of course, the story is seen from this character’s (or group of characters’) eyes, but who is the character we play as throughout? Is the character deeply defined with a lot to say and even more to learn, or is the character a blank slate that says nothing? This, of course, varies depending on the game.
Lately, it’s become sort of a trend for developers of games to do the latter, and have the main character stripped of any voice, personality, or any real defining qualities in order to allow the player to define the character as themselves in a “the hero is you” kind of mindset. This can work really well, but more often than not, I find that this approach feels like the wrong way to go about it, especially when there are other solid FPS character formulas to use. What are these so called formulas though, and what makes one better than another? The answer to both of these questions comes from a franchise you may not expect. Buckle up, this is a long one.
The Crysis trilogy. It’s like Halo, but post-modern, way prettier, and instead of Master Chief and Spartans, there’s the Nanosuit, which enhances the wearer’s physical capabilities, granting super strength, enhanced armor, and cloaking. With the exception of Warhead (because I haven’t played it yet), all three Crysis games use a different approach to defining the player’s character. It didn’t do any of these methods first, but I find that it did the best using them separately in the same series. To analyze these three methods of story narrative, let’s look at the main characters of the respective games, and I’ll explain their significance in a moment. I’ll include links to some in-game clips, to help demonstrate what I mean.
Crysis 1: Nomad – This is a link to the opening sequence in Crysis 1. Nomad is characterized as the perfect soldier, who doesn’t question orders and doesn’t talk much. He is the new guy in his unit, Raptor squad. Before the players steps in his shoes, he was nothing more than a qualified soldier. Throughout the game, Nomad doesn’t say a lot. Most of what we hear from him is acknowledging orders, reactions to events, and whatever else that he needs to say for the plot to advance. In the video I linked, we don’t even hear him breathe a word until he’s mid free fall with no chute. The story is not dependent on him as a character, but rather the events he witnesses, and the obstacles he must overcome, not for himself, but for the mission. Additionally, he is joined by his team on this mission. Though, through circumstance, a large portion of the missions falls on him, he isn’t the only one carrying a load. Think of this narrative voice as the perfect medium of talking too much and not talking at all. This works really well, because while controlling Nomad, the player is able to invest themselves into the story, but isn’t pulled too far in either direction of seeing themselves in the character or having the character over-defined for them. This is a better structure for “first game” titles, since the overarching plot is being introduced. Having less of a character presence draws the player’s attention to what’s in front of them.
When in combat, Nomad remains silent, allowing the player to express the most reaction themselves without the interruption of the character’s thoughts or speech. At the same time though, Nomad does participate in dialogue, making his place in the story more concrete, and also avoiding awkward moments in a lot of other FPS games when the player character is addressed, but responds with nothing.
Crysis 2: Alcatraz – This is a link to a segment from Crysis 2. Alcatraz is the faceless marine whose squad is taken out upon arriving at the battle of New York. We know basically nothing about his character, and he never says a word, which the game even mentions, and later explains why. By chance, Alcatraz ends up being chosen and put into a Nanosuit, which in turn places the fate of New York in his hands. Alcatraz, more than the other Crysis characters, seems to focus largely on having the player see themselves in him. Now, I know earlier it probably seemed like I was against the silent protagonist/”the hero is you” approach, but this is one of the games that really nails it.
The visuals and HUD in Crysis 2 really work in the favor of immersion, making the city and the battle within in an eye popping experience. When Alcatraz first steps outside in New York, the player is given a beautiful shot of the sun rising to the right, and the towering buildings to the left, with obvious signs of battle and smoke in the air. When I saw this part, I just remember my jaw dropped. The visuals alone immediately got me geared up to fight in the city.
I think the main reason the silent character works here though is because of the way the story takes advantage of not depending on a main character narrative. It isn’t the story of Alcatraz, or the marines, or any single character. The story from start to finish is the battle of New York. The loading screen for levels is a tactical map of the city that shows generally what’s going on, while the “briefing” can be heard over radio communication of both allies and enemies. Rather than being one man or a squad on a mission, Alcatraz is just a piece of the overall defense. There are a few levels where you fight alongside groups of marines, one of which has Alcatraz and company holding out on Times Square at night. These are great action segments that really add to the feel of a massive city wide battle as opposed to a more linear feel of the action only being where you are.
Additionally, the minor characters are well represented throughout the story, as you can see a bit of in the video I linked. When I say minor characters, I mean so minor you don’t even know their name. The man and his wife immediately come to mind. First, we see them separated, and can hear him beg that they let him be with her. Around 10 minutes later, we see the very same man yell at your vehicle to stop. You are forced to watch as he runs back to help his wife out from under debris, and you can see more civilians running out from underneath. When the building starts to come down, you can hear two marines yelling. One of them is saying they have to go, and the other is yelling back telling him the man will make it. It’s one of those moments where you as the player react in one of the two ways the marines did, and though you know basically nothing about the man and his wife, you really want them to make it. The moment the vehicle starts to drive away, the marine who wanted to save them yells pretty much exactly what I was thinking in that moment.
To sum this one up, having a silent protagonist lets subtleties have more of a focus, and it works best when the story around the character is able to be carried on its own, without the need for constant primary narrative. However, lacking a character voice can create awkward story breaking moments when there is forced interaction with another character. Alcatraz is excused of this though, because it is explained in the plot.
Crysis 3: Prophet – This is a link to a segment from Crysis 3. Prophet was the squad leader in Crysis 1, showed up again in 2, and is the main character in 3. Crysis 3 takes the chance to try to develop his character, so he is pretty chatty throughout the game, being one of the primary sources of dialogue. The story takes place once again in New York, but this time it’s an overgrown jungle.
Prophet spends most of the game alone, and the plot centers largely around him, and his place in stopping the aliens. Rather than just being a valuable piece in the defense against the aliens like Alcatraz, Prophet’s role here seems to be more along the lines of being the only one who can stop them. As you can see if you watch the first 7 minutes of the video I linked, there is also the subplot of Prophet’s ability to resist the aliens’ influence, which makes more sense of why they use a more vocal character.
Using a more vocal character is best done when the story centers around characters rather than larger scale events. However, this approach can get in the way of player immersion.
So you might be wondering where all of this fits in the grand scheme of things. Well, of course other games use these character approaches, but how much does the formula differ from what the Crysis series did? A look at other FPS games with a focus on story will tell us that the Crysis trilogy is the perfect reference on how to do FPS narrative structure. I’m less familiar with a few of these games, so please correct me if I’m wrong on some of them.
I’ll start with Halo, because it uses all three formulas presented by Crysis within the series. Halo 1, 2, and 3 have the player assume the role of the infamous Master Chief. I would characterize chief as the man for the job, who doesn’t have much to say in the grounds of character development. He does speak though, just not while the player is seeing through his eyes. The story centers around the human race fighting against the alien threat of the Covenant. This story does not depend on Chief as a person, but what he can do as a soldier. This approach is similar to Nomad, in story structure and narrative voice. Halo: Reach also uses the Nomad approach with the character of Noble 6, who is in an elite squad of Spartans who all play a big role in the narrative, much like Raptor squad in Crysis.
Halo: ODST is a special case since it puts the player in the shoes of multiple characters. For the sake of less complication, I’ll just mention the main character, Rookie. Rookie never says a word, and we never see his face, and all we know about him is that he is the new guy in his squad, and that he’s the strong silent type. He is alone for most of the game, and is never really given a reason to speak. The story takes place during the battle of New Mombasa from Halo 2, and through flashbacks, the game frequently has the player assuming the roles of the supporting cast, putting most of the narrative on them. Also, there are additional story elements in the city that can be found in audio logs. This approach is similar to Alcatraz, since the narrative focuses on the supporting characters, and the story takes place during one large event, the battle of New Mombasa.
Halo 4 is the one of these games that I have not played, but after extensive discussion with multiple people and watching a few levels played through, it’s easily defined as the Prophet style. Chief talks way more than previously seen. This is because the game focuses more on Chief as a character, and his humanity and relationship with Cortana. The problem I have here is that the narrative used feels almost like an insult to Chief’s send off in 3, because his character becomes inconsistent, and the character that was one of the best “the hero is you” approaches gets completely left behind, even unmasking the Chief in one of the endings. Not to pick fights here, but what I watched felt like bad fanfiction. In my opinion, if they wanted to focus on the humanity of the Spartans or have a more vocal character, use a new character and reintroduce Chief later so it doesn’t feel like a cash in. One of the reasons the Crysis approach works so well is because each game is a different character, so a change in narrative voice makes sense, and permits that kind of inconsistency. Halo 4 shows that the narrative voice doesn’t only depend on the story, but also the character presented.
On the topic of games that I feel didn’t quite get it right, here are a couple others I’d like to briefly mention. Call of Duty: World at War is one of the best in the series when it comes to campaign. As I recall though, the player characters, though they have a name and face, have no voice. Though it’s true that CoD more frequents the silent protagonist approach, I feel like World at War should have been an exception. WWII was full of some of the toughest and bravest men in recent history. It was a time of heroes. I think that giving the player character some form of voice and personality would have added to the narrative a lot more. Because of the fairly large support cast, playing established characters, and frequently being accompanied by npcs, I think the Nomad approach would have been a good fit.
Far Cry 2 is largely underrated, and those who have played it probably think of malaria long before they think of its story. This could be credited to the lack of consistent narrative. As the player, you select from a list of characters who all have an established background. The character you play determines what supporting characters appear in the game, most of which are from the list of playable characters, which means most if not all of the playable characters have a voice actor, but the player’s character is silent. I think this is a huge missed opportunity, because a voiced character could have made for much better interaction with the supporting cast, and a more defined narrative to combat the dry (pun intended) setting of Africa. Granted, that’s a lot of voice work to be done. Wishful thinking I guess.
The Metro series has become one of my all time favorite FPS titles, but when it comes to its approach to the player character, I have an issue. The loading screen is narrated over by Artyom, the player’s character, reading from his journal, advancing the story between levels. Here’s the problem. While playing the game, Artyom never says a word. I can understand parts that have the player alone, but there are a good number of areas in the game where the player is joined by other characters who talk a lot. Because Artyom says nothing though, it just sounds like one sided banter, and it feels awkward. I feel like since there is an already established voice actor for the character, there’s little excuse to completely lack in game dialogue, especially when the game centers so much around Artyom’s character, much like Crysis 3 centers around Prophet.
If I’m going to mention games that I don’t like the approach of, you know I’m going to mention some that I do like. Here are a few games that have a really good narrative voice using the different formulas we see in Crysis.
I haven’t played Bioshock 2, but I’m currently in the middle of playing Infinite. Bioshock uses a silent protagonist, allowing the setting of Rapture to take center stage. The main character is alone for the whole game as far as i can remember. Since Rapture is more of a darker setting, the game also uses elements of horror. Horror is more effective when using a silent protagonist, because it allows the player to provide the reaction for these situations.
Bioshock Infinite’s story is mostly driven by the relationship between Booker and Elizabeth, so the character of Booker is very vocal throughout. While the city of Columbia is a very strong setting, the narrative doesn’t depend on it as much as Bioshock 1 did on Rapture. Like I said, I’m currently in the middle of this one, but what I’ve played so far really works.
Call of Duty: Black Ops was a nice change from the typical CoD formula. The story was very well done, using a vocal character for a change and with a psychological twist. The game’s plot centers around the main character, Mason, and the events he witnessed. He speaks a lot throughout, both while we play him and in the middle of interrogation scenes which serve as the overall narration.
Finally, there’s Far Cry 3, but I’m not going to rant here about that, since I’ve already ranted about that game a lot in the past, and I tend to get carried away, as you can see, with there being 2900 or so words in this one article so far. If you’re interested in hearing about that one, just read the article I wrote on it here. Basically, all you need to know for its relevance to this is that the main character is very vocal, and the story is centered around him and his progression.
To recap, and this is the last time I promise, Nomad, the occasional speaking voice, is best used when dealing with a character that is part of a whole cast, and in stories that do not depend on the main character’s depth, much like we see in Halo 1-3 and Reach. It is hard to go wrong with this approach, because you get the best of both sides.
Alcatraz, the silent character, is best used when immersion is a main focus. Whether this means getting a player to see themselves in the character and provide the reactions on their own, or allowing the situation, setting, or other characters in the story to have more of a focus, like we see with New York, New Mumbasa, and Rapture. It is also better to do this approach when the character is alone, so awkward one sided conversations can be avoided, unless if it is a plot point.
Prophet, the most vocal character, is best used when the story has a strong focus on said character, or the relationship the characters shares with another character, like with Booker and Elizabeth from Bioshock: Infinite. If the plot has more of a big picture, this character should play a vital role in its resolve. It is a bad idea to give this characterization to a character with an already established voice, unless if its explained in the plot.
So to all of the game developers out there, I just gave you a cheat sheet on how to make characters in an FPS, free of charge. Now there is no excuse for any game to be less than perfect from now on.
You’re welcome.
P.S. It’s probably not a good idea to take that last paragraph seriously.
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