This is a fun one. XCOM, Battle Brothers and games like that are great. They’re fun, they’re deeply tactical puzzles that I enjoy trying to take apart. I like the feeling of my options growing as my units gain more abilities and as my skills as a problem-solver improve. There are a lot of games I play like this. But there’s something interesting about these two games in particular. These are some of the only properties I’ve ever written fanfiction about. (Ignore the Harry Dresden fanfic I wrote when I was sixteen.)
If you don’t know anything about these games, don’t worry. Neither the gameplay nor plot is important to understand here. The only important bit to understand is that you’ll go into fights with a group of soldiers that persist and grow between fights. And if they die? They’re gone forever. Dead. Forgotten except for the in-game memorial buried deep in the basement. Except for the stories that they created.
These stories have nothing to do with the overarching narratives of these games. These stories are almost entirely created by me. But they’re created by the interactions the games create. Take for example a soldier by the name of Adri. He was an axe weilder, a weapon prone to missing but one that Hurt if it didn’t. The night before a randomly generated event caused a fight between him and another company-member, Badr. The next day, the two were pissed at each other even as the company was attacked by wolves. Badr, being an archer was surrounded by the beasts and had little he could do defend himself. But Adri was close enough to take down enough of the creatures that Badr could escape. Bruised and bloodied but alive. Except Adri missed. And the wolves hit a critical artery and Badr bled to death.
In the next fight Adri fought like a monster, hacking through scores of enemies without missing once, despite all the odds. There is no pre-written narrative, but the story is clear. Adri didn’t miss on purpose. But it doesn’t stop him from blaming himself. It doesn’t stop from being a driving force in defeating the enemy as he throws himself into danger with reckless abandon. It doesn’t stop him from saving many of his fellow company-members even as he grows older, weaker and less able to fight. I wrote that story and countless more like it. These randomly generated soldiers now had lives and backstories and fears and enemies and heroes, written in the pages of my notebook. These games became so much richer for that. But these stories would not have existed if these games were not already a fertile ground for this sort of storytelling.
I think these games inspired me to try and be creative with a lot of the games I play. To take things slow and consider the stories that bloom. To find the magic hidden in the crevices of a story that appears when you least expect it. These games are very good. They’re wonderful puzzles. But they’re games about people. And people are complicated. And even if they don’t have a single piece of dialogue, their actions speak so plainly that I can’t help but transcribe it. I’ve since lose the notebook. I’ve forgotten most of the stories. But Adri’s guilt is something that’s stuck with me, even as I’ve forgotten the puzzles and mechanics of Battle Brothers. That perspective is something I value, and it’s something that these games imparted on me.
