Seeing in(to) the dark
July 26th 2008 03:15
"When you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss gazes into you."
-- Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra
Increasingly, the factors behind a game’s success are converging with the factors behind a novel or movie’s success: an engaging plot, compelling characters, and an interesting setting. (Disregard Cooking Mama for the purposes of this article.)
Some of the most successful settings are based on what-ifs. What if there was a period like the Middle Ages but more egalitarian and intellectually active, and also there’s magic and elves? You get Dungeons and Dragons. What if archeology was actually interesting, and also there’s magic and Nazis? You get Raiders of the Lost Ark. But one of the most fascinating settings I’ve ever encountered was based on Murphy’s Law: what if humanity reached the galactic expansion age a la Isaac Asimov – and then everything that could go wrong went wrong?
You get Warhammer 40,000.
When Warhammer 40,000 was new, Star Trek: the Next Generation was in the middle of its run. If you were a fan of the original with Captain Kirk, you should probably skip it and get straight into Voyager, which is much more in line with the traditional Star Trek setup. The main point of interest for our purposes was its utopian outlook, its portrayal of a future without war, poverty, and disease. To say that Warhammer makes the opposite prediction is the understatement of this and every other millennium. The galactic empire has a dismal subsistence economy and is in a perpetual state of war. The only thing standing between mankind and extinction is an institution known as the Space Marines, made up of warriors so heavily augmented by genetic engineering that they are not truly human any more. Oh, and some of those guys turned traitor ten thousand years before the present day, became the Legion of Chaos, and now fight to destroy their former comrades and by extension the human race. Every alien species portrayed in expensive metal miniatures, from the beautiful Eldar to the intelligent Tau to the refugees from H.R. Giger’s laboratory known as the Tyranids, is implacably hostile. In the Warhammer 40,000 universe, mankind’s best days are long gone and will probably never return.
So what is so fascinating about it?
In a world whose dominant characteristics are negative, every positive action stands out and is amplified. It is much harder to be good in a bad world than to be bad in a good world, and someone or something that is good in a bad world is much more meaningful to the audience. Such a setting, whether its negative characteristics arise from a discrete apocalyptic event (as in Fallout or Magic’s recent Time Spiral backstory), from human incompetence or weakness (as in Baldur’s Gate or Resident Evil) or from general decay (as in Warhammer), offers the hope of redemption. This hope is one of the oldest story archetypes in the Western world – and is sure to remain popular in the decades to come.
-- Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra
Increasingly, the factors behind a game’s success are converging with the factors behind a novel or movie’s success: an engaging plot, compelling characters, and an interesting setting. (Disregard Cooking Mama for the purposes of this article.)
This is more fun than a kick in the face why?
Some of the most successful settings are based on what-ifs. What if there was a period like the Middle Ages but more egalitarian and intellectually active, and also there’s magic and elves? You get Dungeons and Dragons. What if archeology was actually interesting, and also there’s magic and Nazis? You get Raiders of the Lost Ark. But one of the most fascinating settings I’ve ever encountered was based on Murphy’s Law: what if humanity reached the galactic expansion age a la Isaac Asimov – and then everything that could go wrong went wrong?
You get Warhammer 40,000.
For the price of the figures shown here, you could buy a new TV set or every Lego model issued since 1999.
When Warhammer 40,000 was new, Star Trek: the Next Generation was in the middle of its run. If you were a fan of the original with Captain Kirk, you should probably skip it and get straight into Voyager, which is much more in line with the traditional Star Trek setup. The main point of interest for our purposes was its utopian outlook, its portrayal of a future without war, poverty, and disease. To say that Warhammer makes the opposite prediction is the understatement of this and every other millennium. The galactic empire has a dismal subsistence economy and is in a perpetual state of war. The only thing standing between mankind and extinction is an institution known as the Space Marines, made up of warriors so heavily augmented by genetic engineering that they are not truly human any more. Oh, and some of those guys turned traitor ten thousand years before the present day, became the Legion of Chaos, and now fight to destroy their former comrades and by extension the human race. Every alien species portrayed in expensive metal miniatures, from the beautiful Eldar to the intelligent Tau to the refugees from H.R. Giger’s laboratory known as the Tyranids, is implacably hostile. In the Warhammer 40,000 universe, mankind’s best days are long gone and will probably never return.
So what is so fascinating about it?
In a world whose dominant characteristics are negative, every positive action stands out and is amplified. It is much harder to be good in a bad world than to be bad in a good world, and someone or something that is good in a bad world is much more meaningful to the audience. Such a setting, whether its negative characteristics arise from a discrete apocalyptic event (as in Fallout or Magic’s recent Time Spiral backstory), from human incompetence or weakness (as in Baldur’s Gate or Resident Evil) or from general decay (as in Warhammer), offers the hope of redemption. This hope is one of the oldest story archetypes in the Western world – and is sure to remain popular in the decades to come.
| 67 |
| Vote |
subscribe to this blog
