Mathijs de Jonge
2017
Finished: 2/2/2024
Grade: B+
This is going to be an extremely interesting and difficult game to talk about. Should I base my thoughts entirely on setting and presentation there would be no grade strong enough to accurately express my thoughts. A refreshingly new take on the world of the post-apocalyptic sci-fi dystopia, everything here is filled with an immense amount of care. The world is realized and tangible, beautiful and threatening, and the artists and writers should really be commended for their efforts.
On the topic of learning from my mistakes, I’m going to break this review into two segments; the main game and “The Frozen Wilds” expansion content. I was not careful when playing Ghost of Tsushima and inadvertently went to Iki island before completing the main quest which caused a few narrative hiccups. This time, I took care to do a little research on the game and make sure to engage with the content in its original release order. To that end, the first half of this review is being written before I start the expansion so that, as much as is possible, they can be assessed organically.
Having just finished the main storyline I can say honestly that this game gives the player so very much to think about. The narrative has two major thrusts: the first is of Aloy, a warrior raised on the outskirts of Nora society, and her quest to discover and stop the source of corruption that is resurrecting ancient war-machines, and the second is her attempt to uncover the truth of her origins and what caused the destruction of the old world. Both are fabulously well drawn, but in truth the first pales in comparison to the second. I cannot count the times that I was feverishly scouring the insides of some ancient ruin and voraciously reading every journal entry, holo-record, and communication log trying to understand how the world ended up the way it did. However, since that second narrative tree will take more than a few minutes to discuss, I think I’ll begin with the more straightforward and less thematically complex line.
The Oseram, the Carja, the Banuk, and the Nora, there is so much creativity to the tribes and cultures that have arisen in the centuries after the fall of human civilization. The art design is brilliant and subtle as, without being heavy handed, the character designs teach the player how to recognize the different inhabitants of the world through their dress, beliefs, and geographies. I can’t say that it’s wholly unique as in several instances I was reminded of “Battlefield Earth”(I can’t speak to the novel as I’ve only interacted with the mixed-bag that was the movie). I don’t mean to make a quality comparison so much as an aesthetic one. I won’t get into the reality of the world that’s been drawn as I always find that conversation petty and irrelevant. The truth is if you’re not willing to buy into a robot horse being killed with metal arrows, you’re in the wrong fantasy from the outset. In short, the tribal portions of the narrative are more akin to a Star-Wars-esque science fantasy while the B-plot (the fall of the old human civilization) is decidedly hard science fiction.
The first of these story arcs, or the present from the perspective of the player, sees Aloy move from an outcast on the outskirts of Nora society in the eastern Savage lands before making her way to Meridian, the Sun Kingdom which is recovering from a brutal civil war and which recently saw the overthrow of their tyrannical king. This becomes the central hub for the majority of the game. It's from there that she learns about a malignant, questionably conscious, AI(Hades) who is programmed to wipe out all life on earth and is manipulating the defeated Carja sect (the Eclipse) by using their religious beliefs and their hope of regaining control of Meridian. The focus here is largely stopping the Eclipse in their efforts to excavate and repair ancient war-robots to achieve those ends. What the Eclipse are unaware of is that Hades is actually using their manpower and muscle to reconnect with the Spire from whence it can transmit to and reactivate the biomass fueling process of the dormant swarm thereby fulfilling its primary function of resetting the terraforming process and wiping out all life on the Earth. Though it sounds convoluted, it’s really just, stop the evil robot from activating the scary sky beam and ending the world. I don’t mean that to sound trite, because it really is a fun story that is colored in the mysticism of the people who have grown up in the shadow of the fall of the old world. It’s endlessly entertaining to see how these tribal societies have maintained and cultivated stories to explain the machines and the ruins all around them. In fact, in the opening moments of the game, while preparing for competing in the Proving(a challenge outcast Nora are aloud to participate in order to earn their way back into the tribe) I actually sat and listened to a storyteller who laid out a history wrapped in folktale that would ignite the curiosity of the most disinterested gamer.
On the other side of the coin is the pure science fiction of the fall of humanity portrayed as perhaps as much as a millennium earlier (I only partially caught the dialogue clue here, but if I heard it correctly it was days numbering in the hundreds of thousands). Here, in a desperate attempt for more automation and efficiency, Ted Faro, the corporate leader of FARO industries and at least partially responsible for the fall of civilization, accidentally created self-replicating and biomass ingesting war robots that stripped the Earth of life in a matter of months. In response Elisabet Sobek, a prominent scientist, assembles a team whose sole purpose is to create an AI terraforming program(Gaia) and its requisite subsystems in order to reconstruct the ravaged biosphere and counteract the malignant Swarm programming. This is the source of the variety of robotic life-forms Aloy finds throughout the game as each species was designed by Gaia to form some purpose in the terraforming effort (there is some indication that Gaia also feels a sense of loss about the the animal species of the planets and used that emotion in its designs). Tragically, and in order to buy time for the construction of Gaia, the human populations were convinced that a savior science project was being crafted and, if time could be purchased by an armed civilian population, there was hope for recovery. The heartbreaking truth was that billions of people went to their deaths for this well-intentioned lie.
This, dangerously, is where the very fascinating and convoluted discussion of theme really begins, and I will only give a brief overview here. It takes a little generosity of reading, but even that effort is interesting. In my more unforgiving moments I can’t help but see the protagonists as nurture-focused, blue, and female (Aloy, Ersa, Elisabet, Gaia, Talanah, the matriarchs, et al) while the antagonists are gain-focused, red, and male(Ted Faro, Jiran, General Herres, Helis, Ahsis). To be clear, I’m not claiming that sexism, intentional or otherwise, is a thematic thrust in the story, rather that the female restorative force is shown as the cure for the masculine destructive one that killed the world. I only writhe against what could have been because this exact thought was more masterfully executed in “Mad Max: Fury Road” and it’s frustrating to see it less expertly expressed here.
Another theme quite common in these types of stories is the dangers posed by artificial intelligence. Interestingly, the development of the faulty program is portrayed as an error of arrogance and a failure to properly understand the implications of decisions made. Usually, this is not the case. In most instances the eventual turn of artificial intelligence against its designers is shown to be an inevitable outcome of the enterprise from the outset and that the fault is in the endeavor, not in the execution. To wit, in this instance the solution to the FARO swarm and its biomass devouring robots is not to return civilization to an AI free state, but to create the correct form of AI which will redound to the benefit of humankind rather than to its destruction.
My own bias is going to jump in here for a moment, and I wanted to acknowledge its presence lest it be confused for my attempt at an objective assessment of the game. I don’t particularly care for the notion above. The hubris of it seems to me the sort of thought that leads to the worst of human behavior. The thought that if we just did it the right way then some thing(be it what it will) which has proven deadly, destructive, and morally reprehensible time and again would usher in the longed for utopia. If AI were designed to be nurturing, maternal, and empathic then it wouldn’t have the problems it has when it is designed to be corporate, ambitious, and aggressive. I’ll not let my inner Malcolms (Ian or Reynolds) take over and let this turn into a full-blown discussion of morality, as even morally abhorrent messaging should not be conflated with a question of quality in craft, and I think what’s here sits more accurately in the perhaps morally gray.
The more egregious element, beautifully tragic in its realism, is the farce committed against the people of the Earth in order to convince them to fight a futile battle against the swarm and purchase the precious hours needed to complete Gaia and secure some future hope for the human race. The narrative lays this crime, of a scope that is difficult to find comparison, at the feet of General Herres who seems fully aware of the breadth of what he’s done and heroically makes sure that a record of such remains for Aloy to find in that far flung future. The problem becomes that this decision is vindicated by the outcome of the game. There is certainly an indictment of the population at large as they must have been willing to participate in the robotization of society (the profitability and commerciality of the institution would not have been possible otherwise), but time and again the military and scientific endeavors are shown to withhold facts from the wider populace ostensibly for the benefit of those not trustworthy enough to know.
This is the malignant thought that is truly horrific and underlies so much of the content of the game. The idea that some of us, we poor ignorant rabble, are not to be entrusted with the full knowledge of our own circumstance because we cannot be counted upon to make decisions in our own best interest is all the more tragic in that it’s certainly not an unthinkable train of reasoning for those who wield or seek power. There is a wonderful attempt to counteract this pattern in the Alpha-scientist’s creation of the Apollo sub-program which was to act as an archive of all human knowledge to be gifted to the generations that would come after Gaia’s terraforming efforts had again made the Earth habitable for humanity (the fact that this attempt would be dear to me can hardly be surprising at this point). However, even this effort is thwarted by Ted Faro who decides, apparently on his own authority, to delete the Apollo program and murder the remaining alpha scientists under the auspices that the future civilization would inevitably follow the same destructive path given access to the same information.
Fascinatingly, this system finds a way to reassert itself even in the societies that grow outside of the light of the old human civilizations. The Sun-king and his priests, Sylens, and even the sainted Matriarchs are shown as sources of withheld truth for the purposes of maintaining power. The Matriarchs even go so far as to deny Aloy what information they possess about her birth and delivery into Rost’s care. Beautifully, and what makes for a most unique kind of hero, Aloy with her dedicated curiosity is portrayed as the curative to this distemper. She frequently and openly shares her findings with everyone with whom she has contact and does her best not to let her new knowledge create false beliefs.
I really had no intent on going that wildly or that feverishly down that path, but there’s nothing to be done now. I should come back to the topic of what at this point must be perceived as a quite harsh score for a story that can prompt this much discussion. The truth comes in the game play itself.
The combat system is intricate and varied with a lot of room for the player to develop real skill over the course of the game. Scanning robots for their weaknesses and planning the best strategy for defeating them is crucial and rewarding, and there is certainly no shortage of difficulty. The close quarters combat is comparatively simple with the player’s choices being limited to heavy and light attacks used as a sort of last resort when an enemy is not successfully kept at arm's length. The best approach seems to be the methodical one, and this can definitely be a turn off for some players. The game encourages stealth approach, picking off the outer members of a mob of enemies, preparing the battlefield with traps and tripwires, and accurately utilizing status effects and weapon types. For a meticulous and patient player this pre-battle preparation can make a large battle feel like a strategic victory and give a real sense of conquest when one of the many extended fight sequences ends in a hard fought triumph. Unfortunately, this makes every encounter feel like an ordeal and the random encounters in the open world quickly become more than a little burdensome. It did not take me long to become irritated at the sight of any enemy and hope to find any way of avoiding another several minutes of combat. There is some variation in the weaponry with each having its own unique ammunition. However, I did not find myself using much more than the Blast Sling(usually my opener to establish a status effect on my target) followed by the War Bow (using dodge and concentrate to make sure to strike weak points whenever possible). The game posits this last bit as an option but it really isn’t. The difference between the damage done in a weak spot compared to anywhere else is staggering such that any other approach becomes very time consuming. I did use the Trip Caster and traps on occasion, but these instances were rare since their use was mostly reserved for pre-battle preparation and are very difficult to use in the chaos of a fight.
The world is filled with collectables and it can be difficult to resist the urge to constantly stop on the way to gather everything possible. The inventory system is a bit of a weak portion as, though the game is generous enough to inform the player generally what items are valuable to prevent errant sales, there is no way to quickly organize or sell off items to clear space in what is constantly a full inventory. This is a small symptom of the larger economy issues. Money quickly seems to lose its value. I’m sure by the end of my play through I had some thousands of shards for which I could conjure no use. There is a limited selection of gear and weapons in the common, uncommon, and rare varieties, but only the rare items seem to have value and are accessible easily and early. While this did not affect the game for me in any measurable fashion, I’m sure it will irritate a player who enjoys the process of finding new and better gear as a secondary progression structure to the skill tree.
The skill tree itself will be familiar to anyone who has played an action RPG before, and there are no great innovations or crimes to speak of. Levels come swiftly with loose skill points to be had coming from every quarter. This allows Aloy to have a good number of her skills for a majority of the game, and I always appreciate being allowed to enjoy the fruits of progression rather than reaching peak performance right before the game ends.
The last word I’ll say is about the story itself and its actors. These things come in two qualities: excellent and serviceable. The main quest is extremely well acted and told with special mention being demanded for Sylens(Lance Reddick) and Aloy(Ashly Burch) who symbolize this wonderful polarity of sinister and sincere curiosity. Sylens, for all the good he does, seeks out secrets for himself, and his search has isolated him from his fellow man and led him into the most dangerous kinds of associations. He uses people to meet his ends, but does not participate productively in society as though the secrets of the world and the past are a path to personal power. He chooses to move from a member of society to an outcast from it. Aloy’s curiosity leads her in the exact opposite direction: from outcast to member of society. She too is looking for enlightenment, but not at the expense of humanity and her connections with it. The side quests are much less well executed and don’t require much comment other than that they are simple, short, and unobtrusive should a player not wish to bother with them at all. They do have a tendency to be repetitive and on the formulaic side. Like in Ghost of Tsushima the tracking and climbing mechanics lose their charm quickly, and there is only passing service done to puzzle solving. Again these complaints are minor and seem only to exist as some sort of concession to what a player expects from a game of this type.
I now have talked overlong, but this is only a fraction of what I would want to say and a sure sign of this work’s ability to capture attention and comment. It takes a great deal of courage for a modern studio to undertake a project like this without the safety net of an existing IP or preexisting fanbase. This is a fabulous game full of challenge, tragedy, mystery, and adventure. There are ominous moments where the weight of the narrative hangs so heavily upon the player that I could feel it in a very real sense. I can only compare that to Hollow Knight and that is not a compliment I wield lightly. Any player with a love of action RPGs, dystopian settings, high concept science fiction, and mysteries that only exploration can solve should make this work a priority.
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