We shouldn't be saving the world on our own

Over the last twenty or so years, games have undergone monumental changes. Some games can now boast stories and worlds with the depth and excitement of books and films. If a player wants, they can spend hours reading up on the back story of the political intrigue between two factions or about this new companion who has just joined their party. Everyone can agree games now have a lot more about them then they did fifteen years ago when a deep plot consisted of chasing a dinosaur through multiple worlds because he'd stolen our princess; but there is one thing holding this development back. Saving the world single handed has become an outdated plot device in the modern game. Games developers love putting us in control of this one man who will have all the odds stacked against him, but still manages to come out on top. Be it through commanding units, managing an inventory or simply whacking things with a crowbar, this person will do everything by himself to rescue the world.

Now you might read this and scoff, it's a game, what's wrong with making the player feel all powerful? Games are supposed to be about enjoyment first and foremost. That's a fair statement; I have no problem with Soap McTavish scooting across the world in the teleport he must possess off camera. All I care about when playing Modern Warfare are the cool explosions and feeling like a badass with my heartbeat sensor. Games like Modern Warfare that don't depend largely on their story are free to use the sole saviour plot, they don't put much effort into their world so it's only natural there won't be much depth in saving it. There are other games however, that do take their story and their world very seriously indeed. One only has to look at the amount of writing that has gone into games like Mass Effect and Dragon Age to realise that these developers care a lot about the story behind their games.

Bioware in particular are zealots when it comes to creating worlds. Not content to just give you an impression on a world as you play through it, they bombard you with historical documents, cultural references, diaries and even the odd conversation just before the next wave of zombies. If they so choose, a player could probably add on several hours to their playtime if they stopped to read up on everything they found. This begs the question then, if Bioware go to such lengths to create these amazingly realised worlds, why do they resort to the same plot device as Duke Nukem? A deep believable world become less so when it depends on one man to solve all of their problems.

The Spectres and the Grey Wardens are similar in that they are the elite soldiers of their worlds and have been a force long before your character was even born. Both groups give their respective games a sense of history beyond your playtime and are the last bastions of defence against forces threatning to destory their worlds. It's a clever piece of storytelling as it allows the developers to put your character in a position where he can go about saving the world. It gives the story much more credibility than simply having your character start off as a farmer killing rats and ending up as a warrior-mage slaying gods. However while these groups sound good in theory, they both become irrelevant as you play through the games. In Mass Effect the only other Spectre I knew about was my enemy and in Dragon Age all the Grey Wardens were dead. On both occassions I entered baby-faced to these prestigious elite organizations which had kept the world safe for years, only to find the task of saving the world thrust upon my shoulders without any of their help. It seems a shame to think that these groups, which were extensively written about, were only used as a means of putting your character in the position to save the world on his own.

So why then is saving the world single-handedly so favoured by games developers? With good writing saving the world can feel epic. Mass Effect is a great example of how exciting a grandiose storyline can be. Saving the world can sometimes feel cliched and somewhat boring in a lot of games, but Bioware knows it has the writing staff to pull it off. However what's wrong with saving the world as a part of a team? No I don't mean the handful of other guys who follow me around, shooting aimlessly at stuff, I mean as a team in the larger sense. If I was part of the Grey Warden retaliation after Ostegar or one of the many Spectres the council sent after Saren, the game would have been much more believable, as well as keeping that epic feel to it. I could still partake in exciting missions, but the whole world wouldn't be balanced on the completion of it. The Grey Wardens and the Spectres have so much written about them, they should be used as more than just a starting point for the story. When so much effort goes into creating this huge believable world then it should come into action and become more than just a backdrop.

Games developers need to rid themselves of the notion that the player has to do everything himself to bring the bad guy down. Give the already established factions a hand in the war, even if it's just an off screen story telling device. You don't have to throw the world at a player to make him feel like he's in this epic situation, with good writing saving the dog can feel just as epic as saving the planet. I want to feel like a person in this amazing deep world you have created for me, not a god.