Why all this violence?! - Alternatives to violence in video games?

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

Let me start this thread near the end, with Fallout 4. Fallout 4 has a beautifully crafted game world, pretty much every location in the game has a story to tell, whatever it is a bunch of skeletons barred up in a church or emergency transmissions from a ruined suburb or a collection of terminals in a factory. Yet despite this beautiful game world the player only has one option in engaging with it: Killing things. Just like every location tells a story, every location also contains enemies to kill or quest givers that points you to enemies kill. This has been the case with all Bethesda games really, but with Fallout 4 the violence really got to me, simply because the game world is so well-crafted that I wanted to engage with it in more ways then just killing Super Mutants so I could read the logs of a survivor that had been there before.

Another poignant example for me is BioShock. Rapture is by far my favorite setting of any game to date (and it ranks really high when extended to all media) and the game deals in both fairly intellectual discourse about Objectivism, morality and human nature as well as telling several emotional stories about the people caught in the decaying Rapture. The music by Gary Schyman is wonderfully melancholic and the level design drives home the contrast between the dream that Rapture was and the nightmare that it has become. But what is the only way to engage with BioShock on a mechanical level? By killing people. Lots of people.

Maybe I am just getting older, but I am starting to feel that more and more games suffer from being caught in old wisdoms about game design. BioShock as a game is still a mechanically sound shooter with some innovative elements, but the design of everything but the combat holds the promise of something deeper, something more satisfying and tonally congruent with the game world then sending bees to attack people before bashing their face in with a wrench. Fallout 4 has an amazing world to explore but little to do in it except kill things. I don't know what could replace the combat, but I can't shake the feeling that both BioShock and Fallout 4 would have been much better games had they only had the guts to focus on something other then violence as the primary means of gameplay interaction.

 

[pookie101]

i do know what you mean its rare for a game these days to allow a player to go from start to finish and not kill people and things. i would suggest age of decadence where a non combat build is viable and actually fun

 

[Kingjackl]

I feel like it's more justified in cases like Bioshock where you're exploring a hostile world. Yes, the setting and themes are incredibly deep, but the people who occupy it have been reduced to animals. In that case, there's really only two approaches they could have gone with; fight or flight (meaning stealth).

I think Fallout 4 was just lazy with it's quests. There are plenty of RPGs where you can interact non-violently with the environment. New Vegas did it right, and Undertale proved you can make a skill-based game out of pacifism, so there are other options.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

I disagree! There needs to be MOAR violence in video games! In fact make it legally mandatory for chainsaw appendectomies in every game. 2 if its a kid's game! That'll teach that ***** Dora to go exploring without proper adult supervision!

In the immortal words of Angron: Humanity is a wrathful species and anger vindicates all of its sins. Nothing is as honest a rage. Throughout the history of the human race what release of emotion has been more worthy and true than depth-less anger? In rage anything is justified. It is the highest state of sentience. Through rage comes vindication, and through vindication comes peace.

 

[CeeBod]

If we're talking Fallout 4 (or similar) then it's not just the lack of an alternate to violence that I find tiresome, it's the lazy way that it's implemented. Bandits attack the player character, no matter how well armed the player is, and how underequipped they are in comparison, just because that's what mooks do in games.

Just once I'd like to see a nuanced bandit faction portrayed in a game - for a group of bandits to actually survive, they should be selective in who they target, they should attack their prey mostly by ambush, and they should always be amenable to profitable negotiation. In Fallout 4, once the PC becomes powerful they should leave you well alone in terms of direct encounters, but instead they'd be stealing from your provisioners, or bullying settlers, and maybe simultaneously being friendly to you, offering you protection against raiders at a cheap rate, blaming any incidents of violence against your settlers on other groups etc. Make them a believable group with goals that can be dealt with in a variety of ways and not just more faceless mooks to shoot!

 

[DoPo]

If we're talking Fallout 4 (or similar) then it's not just the lack of an alternate to violence that I find tiresome, it's the lazy way that it's implemented. Bandits attack the player character, no matter how well armed the player is, and how underequipped they are in comparison, just because that's what mooks do in games.

I sort of liked how in Shadow of Mordor, you could scare the orcs away from combat. And if you used terror tactics against the orcs a lot, you'd start hearing them talk about you as some sort of boogeyman. Unfortunately, it never quite transitioned into you jumping out and them just running away - they always fought you still. It would have been a nice change if you could become so terrifying that some enemies would just piss themselves and surrender when they saw you. Alas.

 

[nomotog_v1legacy]

There are a lot of non violent games out in the wild. They just aren't being pushed on us like other games. I kind of want to see more in the way of supernatural domestically. Like take the sims and cross it with bioshock... That idea is horrible or wonderful.*

I hope part of the reason combat is pushed so much is that we just know more about it and we know how to make engaging systems about killing people. Like we don't really have the platform to present a nice dinner in the same quality we present a knife fight. I fear that the real reason is violence sells and we focus on violence in games because we want to.

*Or maybe pokemon harvest moon. I am 4 pages into a design doc for this idea. No it's not good why do you ask

 

[Ryotknife]

Its kinda justified in FO4.

Think back to when the DayZ mod for Arma2 came out. Some people would turn to banditry and kill people on sight. This starts a chain reaction with everyone starting to kill people on sight not to steal their stuff, but to prevent the possibility that the people they killed were bandits who would kill them. Even normally non-assholish people resorted to this tactic as a measure of self defense.

Ark:survival Evolved is the same way. You HAVE to assume that every person not in your tribe is trying to kill you. There are no depths to which people will not sink to to kill you or steal your stuff in that game to the point where you cant even trust seemingly new players and show them the ropes because they could be veterans merely pretending to be new players so they can find a way to crack th defenses around your base and let their tribe in and destroy/loot your place (destroying potentially dozens if not hundreds of hours of work).

And thats a videogame. People resort to these barbaric practices just so they dont lose hours of their work. Imagine if your life was on the line.

In FO4, raiders are running rampant, there are an army of Terminator synths that look human, supermutants are eating people, etc etc. There isnt any law and order like in NV (with the exception of diamond city and good neighbor, who dont extend out much from their area) with the NCR on one side and Legion on the other with most of the conflict revolving around those two. It is a far more desperate setting than NV, possibly even FO3 (the brotherhood helped).

 

[nomotog_v1legacy]

Its kinda justified in FO4.

Think back to when the DayZ mod for Arma2 came out. Some people would turn to banditry and kill people on sight. This starts a chain reaction with everyone starting to kill people on sight not to steal their stuff, but to prevent the possibility that the people they killed were bandits who would kill them. Even normally non-assholish people resorted to this tactic as a measure of self defense.

Ark:survival Evolved is the same way. You HAVE to assume that every person not in your tribe is trying to kill you. There are no depths to which people will not sink to to kill you or steal your stuff in that game to the point where you cant even trust seemingly new players and show them the ropes because they could be veterans merely pretending to be new players so they can find a way to crack th defenses around your base and let their tribe in and destroy/loot your place (destroying potentially dozens if not hundreds of hours of work).

And thats a videogame. People resort to these barbaric practices just so they dont lose hours of their work. Imagine if your life was on the line.

In FO4, raiders are running rampant, there are an army of Terminator synths that look human, supermutants are eating people, etc etc. There isnt any law and order like in NV (with the exception of diamond city and good neighbor, who dont extend out much from their area) with the NCR on one side and Legion on the other with most of the conflict revolving around those two. It is a far more desperate setting than NV, possibly even FO3 (the brotherhood helped).

Na That isn't really a good justification by itself. The game needs to do what is good for the game not just what would be the most realistic.

You know the puzzling thing about fallout 4 is that is has kind of a deep noncombat system. You have the settlements and then the crafting. You could make a whole game just out of the settlement management. (In fact they should make a game just about that.) Think about it, take fallout 4 remove all the guns and monsters, there would still be a lot of fun to be had scavenging ruins and building up your settlements. (Then imagine if they built on that and added more verity of settlement quests, diplomacy and trading, recherche, More verity in buildings, story chains for your settlers.. I hope they are planing something for DLC.)

 

[Ronald Nand]

Have you tried Stealth Games? Many have great worlds and allow you to go through the whole game without killing a single person, infact good stealth games will let you go through the game without even knocking anyone out. Deus Ex Human Revolution, Thief Gold (plus the sequel) and Dishonored all have stylistic worlds and allow you to go through without even interacting with your enemies.

As for RPG's Vampire Bloodlines the Masquerade allows you to go through the first two thirds of the game with minimal combat using stealth and persuasion skills, the last third unfortunately turns into a boss rush in which you'll be wrecked without combat skills.

 

[Rebel_Raven]

While I agree that nonviolence options in games would be welcome, honestly, I think the reliance on violence is because it's generally the furthest realistic option we'd have IRL. It's a greater escapism than talking things through. That helps make it appealing.

And there was a guy that went through fallout 4 killing almost no one outside of bosses. Bosses don't count as kills, so he made it through with a body count of 0. There are syringers, too.

One problem with non-violence is that there are people out there that can't be reasoned with, and those people can be very dangerous, so what then?

That isn't to say that there's no nonviolent games out there, or anything like that.

 

[Something Amyss]

While I agree that nonviolence options in games would be welcome, honestly, I think the reliance on violence is because it's generally the furthest realistic option we'd have IRL. It's a greater escapism than talking things through. That helps make it appealing.

I'd also argue it's a really easy way to do everything games want you to do, whether it's close to real life or not.

 

[CaitSeith]

For the title this thread, there are too little suggestions on alternatives in the OP. Probably everybody right now is tired of hearing about Undertale (advertised as "the friendly RPG where nobody has to die"), so I won't say any more details. But we had other relatively good games with low violence in 2015 like Grim Fandango remake, Life Is Strange, Kerbal Space Program, Journey remake, The Beginner's Guide, etc...

 

[Bilious Green_v1legacy]

I think a lot of it comes down to ease of production. It's a lot easier to design and implement a consistent combat system that works throughout the game, than to have to go through each encounter individually, creating dialogue trees, non-combat interactions, recording voice over, etc. Combat is just much more efficient to develop than non-violent resolution scenarios, and since developers and publishers are always looking to cut costs, simply defaulting to combat as a means of resolution for the vast majority of encounters is the most efficient solution.

 

[WolfThomas]

You know the puzzling thing about fallout 4 is that is has kind of a deep noncombat system. You have the settlements and then the crafting. You could make a whole game just out of the settlement management. (In fact they should make a game just about that.) Think about it, take fallout 4 remove all the guns and monsters, there would still be a lot of fun to be had scavenging ruins and building up your settlements. (Then imagine if they built on that and added more verity of settlement quests, diplomacy and trading, recherche, More verity in buildings, story chains for your settlers.. I hope they are planing something for DLC.)

I think this would be great. But in Fallout or another similar setting there'd still to be some option of violence, if only to have something you're trying to avoid. Like you could enter conflict with another settlement but it's just as likely to be mutually destructive and only as a last resort. Not the main character just blasting away the opposition.

The other thing is just the projection of power, rather than actual conflict. If you have artillery and strongly trained combat force a settlement will probably join or surrender peacefully rather than risk being wiped out and raiders are going to be pushed out of well patrolled and defended zones.

 

[InsanityRequiem]

I?d say the biggest part for so much violence is due to it being the easiest mechanic to showcase a game/advance the story. A game without violence tends to stall as it would have difficulties advancing the story, which is why The Witness is doing so well even though it lacks the violence most games have. Even though it?s quite vague in how it does the story itself.

But really, persuasion/talking/non-violence is hard to advance a game?s plot/showcase said game?s world/etc. It would take some really gifted, or crazy (most likely both), devs to work out a game without violence in it.

 

[chocolate pickles]

Because In games like Bioshock and Fallout, why on earth would your character go for the pacifist route? They are in a hostile world where nigh-on everything wants to kill them; it would make no logical sense for them NOT to fight back.

Games like Undertale seem to have everyone digging pacifism when it make absolutely no sense.

 

[NPC009]

While I agree that nonviolence options in games would be welcome, honestly, I think the reliance on violence is because it's generally the furthest realistic option we'd have IRL. It's a greater escapism than talking things through. That helps make it appealing.

I'd also argue it's a really easy way to do everything games want you to do, whether it's close to real life or not.

Yep, this. It's an extremely easy way to let the player progress and show that progression. Evil person/god/tree wants to make things go bad? Beat it up! Baddie gone means problemen solved. Also, you got exp/a new weapon/new skill. You've accomplished something!

Another thing about violence is there isn't much need for variables. Either you kill it or you don't. Easy to write, easy to program.