Bit of an explanation as to what prompted me to make this post: I recently played through Sniper Ghost Warrior: Contracts 1 and 2 and I just felt off. I've slaughtered hundreds of innocents for my amusement in games like Fallout and TES, I play through No Russian with a grin, but for some reason, I refrain from killing bad guys in SGW? The first one has you hunt down Russian oligarchs and war criminals, while the second one is about Middle Eastern terrorists and this is the game where I feel bad about killing? There's just something about the soldiers talking about their daily problems like making no money, uncomfortable boots and sweating too much, or showing eachother pictures of their dogs, not to mention the absolute horror when you've got a knife against their throat or when they find a body. I hope this isn't weird, but I've never experienced remorse for killing a video game enemy, and I've played a lot of different games. I'd like to hear about your experiences, and which games do a good job humanising common enemies, the concept intrigues me.
It is silly, but I don’t hunt the animals in breath of the wild. Some of the best dishes are fruits and veggies only, so my link is a vegetarian.
I introduced my little nephew to AC: Black Flag recently. He’s been gaming since he was even smaller, I’ve seen him go to war in Halo Reach, and assassinate innocent folk in Skyrim. The first living thing he came across, right at the start of the game (I hadn’t played it myself that point) was a turtle on the beach.
I started yelling ‘kill it! Kill the turtle!’, thinking he’d get some kind of handy resource out of it. He ran the other way, and when I asked him why he didn’t kill the turtle, he looked at me with sad little eyes and said, ‘but I don’t want to’.
That struck deep friend, deep
Inversely, I had to give my kid a hard rule to stop killing innocent creatures in games, cause he had a habit of finding little packs of animals in Minecraft and slaughtering the whole bit. When I’d ask him why he’d be like we need the food and wool. And I’m like bro, we’re on peaceful, we don’t kill creatures for fun.