I Don't Think You Deserve Redemption, Aiden Pearce

I don't know what game some of you played, but I played a game where I only killed people who were already shooting at me, and tried to minimize civilian casualties throughout. I would even reload the game if I ran over some random citizen, because I felt like that should be a fail-state, considering the story of the game.

And yes, I realize this is a very old thread. I wasn't the one who bumped it, initially.

Yeah, some person came through and was very upset about some very old comments apparently.

@spaceinsomniac: Totally. Didn't kill any civilians or any cops. Using the slow-mo mechanic to maneuver around them was fun as hell.

But besides all that, Aidan Pearce is still a fucking killer. He's quite far from an ideal hero. He (or rather you, the player, for the most part) kills based on his beliefs of what's right and wrong. He's a madman with technological insights (via ctOS) that fuel his determinations of who deserves to die. Your actions tell the tale of whether you're a completely ruthless and chaotic vengeful asshole, or a vengeful asshole that maintains some twisted semblance of a code.

That final choice isn't so focused on redemption, just as his entire quest isn't about compassion. It's about choosing to imprint your particular morality onto the world or not. Wielding the power he has in that moment to exact revenge and satiate emotional or principled inclinations, or not.

The whole game through its use of ctOS feels like an exercise in empathy and power, whether by design or happy accident. Obviously I'm not privy to what the developers intended with this game, and can only offer an interpretation.

If only most critics who tackle social issues in gaming could make that mental leap. Far too many just make bad-faith accusations.

But yeah, this game, its "anti-hero" protagonist, and the reactions of articles like this one remind me very much of Breaking Bad, and how many people were upset because they felt that the protagonist of that show deserved an ending much worse than the one the series ended on. They felt that the show never treated him as the bad guy he became. Meanwhile, the show's creator himself has stated that he feels the protagonist went from "good guy" to "bad guy" in the first episode.

It also reminds me of how I spent the first several hours playing GTA V with the same "don't kill civilians" mentality as I did with Watch Dogs, and then went off the rails into "fuck everybody" territory when it came time for Trevor. If Ludonarrative dissonance is a thing--and I'd say it is--then NOT killing random people while driving around in your car as Trevor would be a good example of it.