The emotional component of gaming is one that has been disturbingly downplayed lately. With the surge of videophiles and uber competitive multiplayer junkies, who has time to care about the story or characters in a game anymore?
Emotional investment in gaming seems to have lost its way a bit, and many have nearly forgotten what it’s like to care about video game characters at all.
In an attempt to unveil exactly what’s missing in games today, I’m going to deconstruct what went right with what is arguably the most emotional and devastating moment in video game history- the sacrifice of Aerith Gainsborough.
Don't roll your eyes at me. Despite what some RPG elitists or RPG loathers might tell you, Aerith's death was a powerful and pivotal shift. For many, including myself, it was the first time they were truly crushed when playing a video game (that had not been caused by losing a saved game, or having to restart a level, that is). Never before has such a population of gamers had this kind of visceral reaction to a scripted event, and I'm going to try to decipher why so many games seem to fail in recreating a moment like this.
Develop your characters.
Video game characters, both main and supporting, can be as finely or sloppily crafted as those in any novel or movie. Evoking emotion is intrinsically tied to a game's ability to draw truly likeable characters. This is perhaps the most important component, and arguably the most difficult to do successfully. Don't make them overused, generic archetypes. One of the most important things to remember in creating a cast is a level of believability. Real characters have quirks and habits, passions and dreams. We want to see what they're self conscious about. We want to see what they're embarrassed about. Skeletons in the closet should be touched upon, later revealed, and never be used as an introduction.
The characters should have dimension- a history, a childhood, a coming of age, maturation, progression. Why are the characters the way they are during the game's timeframe? We want a vested interest in these characters. The more a gamer likes your characters, the more they're going to want to pop in that disc to see what they do next... and the more grief-stricken they'll be when that character no longer speaks.
Don't underestimate the power of trivialities.
Whenever a player is interacting with a character, it's never wasted gameplay. I don't mean to say that the goal should be to saturate the game with side missions or fetch quests, but there should be a stronger emphasis on simple tasks of assisting NPCs or gaining access to an exclusive area. Who doesn't remember the date sequence in Final Fantasy VII? Primitive by even the standards of Japan at the time, it was still a memorable moment, and there was absolutely no purpose to it other than to establish characters. What's more, control was put in the player's hands... depending on how you treated certain characters, or certain decisions you made throughout the game, you would gain the affections of different people. This could, and often did, change the date sequence (and other events throughout the game). This attention to detail is a simple concept. If you do things in the game that the characters like, they'll like you back. This adds another dimension to them.
Kill off a central character.
The gamer reaction that a developer should want from killing off a character is something like this: something precious was just taken from you, stolen from you, and you can’t get it back. This can be achieved on another level by actually taking something of utility. Eliminating a playable character in Final Fantasy VII was of paramount importance. Not only had she been playable, fully customizable, but she joined your group very early on, letting the player choose to keep her in his/her party until her very death. The loss of progress gives the death an impact felt from even a gameplay perspective, and this can be very effective.
Don't draw out the death.
The death should be sudden and, ideally, unexpected. Prolonged deaths have their place, but more often than not, gamers will roll their eyes in frustration at how long the dying character's death monologue is. A moderately quick death can be more impactful than having to sit through 20 minutes of death throes. The other characters' reactions to the death, including the protagonist's, should be the central focus. Give it weight within the game world and amongst your other characters. Only then can it have weight with the gamer.
Give the player a sense of helplessness.
Have there be interaction leading up to the death. Give them the option to use certain items to no effect. Make it so the player has to fight to reach the dying character, or (in the case of Final Fantasy VII) be such a psychological wreck that they're unable to do anything. The goal is to make the player look like they can save them, even if they can't. Games have the unique advantage of being able to do this over other forms of media. It shouldn't be squandered.
Give it significance to the actual plot.
The death should be a purposeful one instead of being tacked on (and motive for some silly revenge plot is not enough). Don’t waste their death. Make it have a point… they sacrifice themselves for you, for a cause, for the world... maybe it's not clear at the time of death, and the discovery of that reason can later be an important plot device. When characters start having motives of their own and start acting out on their own, that's when they really begin to come to life.
Some of these things may seem obvious, but not many of them have been convincingly executed since the death of the most mourned video game character of all time. It's no accident that so many gamers worldwide will never forget that moment that they lost someone special to them- someone who was just a bunch of polygons rendered on a screen.
Oh, and just so we're clear, you can go ahead and tell me that only wimps get emotional over video game characters. No one's impressed.
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