It’s been a while since I last posted. I’ve been paying to maintain this blog, only to let it collect dust. Gaming has been a difficult hobby to spend a great deal of time in due to… well, life. A lot has changed in the intervening years since I last posted here, but something came to my mind lately that spurred the urge for me to resurrect this pile of disassociated thoughts and ramblings. However, one thing that has stuck out in my mind lately came from the newest title that I’ve been hyper-focusing on: Ready or Not.
If you aren’t already familiar with the game, it’s a tactical first-person shooter with a heavy emphasis on slow-and-steady as opposed to the normal run-and-gun methods that are encouraged in other shooters. Think of it like the SWAT equivalent of Rainbow Six; before the hero-shooter mess of Rainbow Six: Siege which bastardized the franchise. The “story” mode of Ready or Not follows the SWAT operators of the Los Sueños Police Department as they embark on missions to tackle a number of different, high-intensity situations (I’m on fire with the hyphens tonight). The combat is frenetic, disorienting, deadly, and some may even say… exciting.
For context, there’s no “sprint” button; the closest you’ll get is putting your weapon in a “low-ready” state which allows you to move slightly faster, but makes you vulnerable if you run into a suspect, whom can put you down with a couple well placed shots. Sure, you can stack up with heavy ceramic armor plates and take a couple more hits, but you’ll be lucky if you can make it through your first few missions without being domed in a matter of seconds. Your path forward is intended to be slow and deliberate, making full use of your team and their tools. At your disposal are not only an array of rifles, submachineguns, and shotguns, but also a number of less-than-lethal means of taking down suspects. You’re encouraged by the mission scoring system to prioritize arrests over body bags, and a single civilian getting caught in crossfire can result in a total mission failure.
The campaign itself consists of several missions that follow a number of different plot threads, with some standing alone. You’ll find yourself responding to a convenience store robbery gone bad, raiding a drug manufacturing operation based out of a run down home, and even clearing out a building inhabited by a homeless population. Despite this, there are some missions that contain connections to the others. Overall, the game tackles a number of sensitive topics including child exploitation, human trafficking, and even mass shootings.
No Stranger To Controversy
Ready or Not isn’t new to the realm of striking a minor chord with people. With levels like Valley of the Dolls and Elephant, it makes sense for those who are sensitive to the topics the game covers to criticize Ready or Not. After all, these are very real problems that have dire consequences for the victims. For instance, Valley of the Dolls involves raiding an adult film director’s mansion only to find child exploitation material inside. Elephant covers an active shooting on a college campus. Neon Tomb tasks the player with stopping an active shooting in a nightclub.
Having played the game, I can attest that the scenes present are gruesome to say the least (bordering on highly exaggerated). Coupled with this is the fact that the suspects are difficult to sympathize with in any way, which makes it far easier to stick with the plan to eliminate the threats on each map, though it does make it far less meaningful to try to use an less-than-lethal means to complete objectives. I guess it’d be adequate to say that Ready or Not promotes the idea of being detached from what’s actually going on.
I won’t lie and say that the game isn’t fun or that it’s poorly executed. Rather, it’s a fantastic return the days of yore when tactical first-person shooters forced players to take their time, like with the aforementioned Rainbow Six franchise or games like SWAT, of which Ready or Not is considered to be a spiritual successor.
Still, playing it does make me wonder if there are limits to what games should cover. It isn’t like we haven’t been here before considering the response to the No Russian mission in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II or the original Six Days in Fallujah which was lambasted for covering the invasion of Fallujah in 2004. While the former hit a sour note because of the player’s participation in a mass-killing, the latter seemed to be criticized for the closeness of the timeframe between the real events happening versus the release of the game; essentially, it felt “too soon”.
What Is Off-Limits?
With these things in mind, it does call into question whether or not a video game is the “correct” format to introduce difficult topics. I would argue that it’s entirely dependent on the context of the game, the role of the player, and how close in time the events of the game are to a similar event.
For example, while a player wasn’t forced to shoot in the No Russian mission, completing the mission still required the player to allow the events to unfold. Perhaps the biggest criticism I could have of the mission is that it was optional, meaning there was no penalty for not completing it, making the entire section completely pointless other than to experience gratuitous violence. Additionally, playing through No Russian puts you in the shoes of an (albeit) unwitting antagonist. On the other hand, Six Days in Fallujah puts the player in the shoes of a Marine during an operation that took place not too long before the intended release of the game, which led to its cancellation. Even the reboot of Medal of Honor encountered some resistance as it allowed players to fight as the Taliban in multiplayer when the US military was still fighting them in Afghanistan.
Some games have been lauded for their portrayal of significantly disturbing events like This War of Mine, which is based on the Siege of Sarajevo. Others simply put you in the boots of the bad guy, like with Papers, Please, where you can act as a loyal member of the state and send those you cross to their (implied) death.
Ready or Not falls into an interesting middle ground though, because while it isn’t designed to glorify violence or tragedy, it introduces some truly horrific material as a backdrop for the game. Still, players are thrust into these situations as the characters that are meant to restore order rather than participate in the chaos, and you’re penalized for making mistakes or deliberately harming innocents. As an example, if you’re too careless on a mission and you kill a civilian or a teammate, your AI companions will kill you in response. The same goes for killing a suspect who has been arrested. To me, this implies that the goal isn’t simply to kill, but to stop the threat by any means necessary.
That said, it doesn’t change the fact that the subjects covered in Ready or Not make me uncomfortable, but maybe that’s why it feels more like a horror game than a typical FPS. It doesn’t seem inherently wrong to feel uncomfortable with rough topics in media either. The Guilty, a movie I watched recently, comes to mind as it involves a number of horrifying circumstances. Collectively we also seem okay with having a player operate as a bad guy like with the WWII based Call of Duty and Battlefield games allowing you to play as the Axis powers in multiplayer. We don’t seem to have much concern anymore with the freedom of games like Grand Theft Auto to allow players to do any number of heinous things to seemingly innocent bystanders. You could even call into question the activities of players in games like Stellaris or Cities: Skylines where you can wipe out entire sentient species or annihilate citizens with natural disasters respectively. Let’s not even mention The Sims…
Is There A Line?
That’s the question here. Is there a line, and if so, where is it? I’m of a mind to say that there isn’t a broad line that can’t be crossed so much as that individual people are allowed to have their limits on what they consider to be appropriate. So while I’ve put my thoughts out here, I’ll turn it to you, dear reader.
Do you have a line when it comes to sensitive topics games cover? Are there any recent examples of games or media in general that cross your line?
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