Fifth Post: Supporting Characters and their Importance to the Player in FPS games.

Sorry for the long hiatus. I had to pick myself up and move back to my old home after graduating.

Introduction

As a gamer, I've recently come to discover that I don't have many meaningful games that I want to play. Many of the FPS games I've played have had trouble staying in my library for a long period of time. I would enjoy them, but they never made a significant impact emotionally to me. Over the years of playing FPS games, I've come to realize that the reason why I don't keep a lot of my modern FPS games nowadays - I don't care. I've played some major FPS hits this year - Borderlands 2, Black Ops II, Modern Warfare III, Halo 4, and Battlefield 3. I find myself playing the game for a bit and then selling it back after I'm done with them. I found myself asking why I didn't care about games like this while I still have my copies of Star Wars Republic Commando, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, and Halo: ODST. I'm not much of a multi-player person either, so I'm not going to comment about that at all. After typing up a response to the CleverNoobs forum (I'm Delta_62, for those asking) about the prevalence and oversaturation of Console FPSs (they seem to be coming out of the trees or something), I realized why I find myself not caring about many of the FPSs in the market for very long: I don't feel connected to the world. Most of the games I've played are very beautiful, but, as the often silent protagonist, it feels very big...and very alone. While that alone isn't a bad thing, I don't feel as immersed and, therefore, emotionally connected to the world. The people in that world seem so far away from me that I just don't care...and that is presuming that there are people in the world to even care about. After writing my post in CleverNoobs, I have come to realize that a lot of the reason why I don't find myself too immersed in the world is because I don't have a personal connection to the supporting characters in that world. The supporting characters are really the chains that tether you to the world. If you do not feel that connection, the game feels more like work than an immersive experience.

Supporting Characters: What do they do?

Supporting characters fill the dual role of getting you to care about the world in-game while they try to get you acclimated to how to interact with the world through your controller. If done correctly, the supporting characters will make the awkward transition between real-world (controller) and game world (interaction) very seamless. As an example, I will be using the character of Gaz from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare to demonstrate how supporting characters fulfill both the role of immersing the player in the game world and while teaching you how to interact with it. The first level of the game starts the player out as a FNG character known to the outfit he is a part of as "Soap". The first person that Soap meets is his unit's second-in-command: Gaz. Gaz looks and acts noticeably annoyed at the player-character, and this is due to the previous cutscene explaining that even though the world is going to hell, the real bad news is that they have a new guy - you, the player. You, as the player, don't know what is going on in the world that makes it "just another day in the office", but you are already feeling immersed in the world around your outfit of elite SAS troopers. Already, in the first few minutes of the first level of the game, you feel like you need to prove your worth to your superior and more experienced squadmates by engaging the targets as quick as you can, switching between weapons, knifing a watermelon, and beating Gaz's squad record for the obstacle course. Gaz, along with Price later in the level, completes his role in immersing you in the game world while getting you acquainted with the controls to interact with it.

Joseph Stalin (yes...I can't believe I'm quoting him) once said that, "One death is a tragedy. A million lives is a statistic." In video game terms, he is right. In order to keep the player interested in the world and what is going on in it, a good writer would go to great lengths to make the goals personal. This either means that you make the supporting character persuade you that their objectives are something you should care about or take it one step further and make you emotionally invested in the outcome. The goal in Modern Warfare is to find Al-Asad, find Zakhaev, and stop a nuclear strike from hitting the United States. As you progress through the game, you fight alongside Gaz and Price in order to survive and complete the mission. Even though there is a war going on and millions of lives are at stake, the writers were smart to make the focus more on the squad completing big tasks that affect the story. Gaz is important as a supporting character because his character is relatable, rational, and funny. You, as a player, rely on the Gaz both in the game as a competent soldier and emotionally as a way to express your feelings about what is going on in the world. When the player sees that the supporting characters are reacting to a given situation the same way the player is, the player grows attached to the supporting character and, transitively, the world at large. An example of this occurs when the SAS team is fighting to exfiltrate from an area before getting overrun by an incoming force of Insurrectionists.  They fight uphill to the first Landing Zone and when they are told that they need to go down the hill and through more soldiers because the Landing Zone is too hot, Gaz complains, "Oh, he's gotta be taking a piss! We just busted our arses to this LZ, and now they want us to go all the way back down?!" I groaned along with him, after struggling up the hill with him. You feel this kinship with the supporting character that gets stronger as you interact with them in the game, directly or indirectly. It motivates you to complete the goal (survive and go to the second LZ) with them.

Another example of this strong kinship is in the ending levels, where Gaz has to open a blast door in the nuclear facility. As the blast door opens slowly, Price asks Gaz if that could open any faster, to which Gaz responds with, "Negative sir, but you could try pulling on it if it will you feel better." I laughed at the joke while Price groans, "Cheeky bastard." Interactions like this bolstered the emotional and psychological toll of the final moments of the game. I remember when I saw Gaz struggle to get up and then get shot by Zakhaev in cold blood. I remember how much my blood boiled when I saw the bullet go through Gaz's head. I remember screaming "NO" so loud it woke up my college roommate. I remember Price's black M1911 sliding over to me. I remember how true my shot was. I remember where I shot Zakhaev and how fast I shot his body guards. The events of the final moments of the ending are still a clear picture in my head, and I haven't played the end level since 2007, when the game came out. Even though one of the goals of the game was that Zakhaev needed to be taken out, I never cared about taking him out until I saw him take out my friend. The people I saved from a nuclear blast - statistic. The one guy I failed to save - tragedy.

Conclusion

The important thing to consider when gauging how great a support character can be is to look at how the character emotionally affected you. I can remember the names of a lot of supporting characters that have fought with me over the years I've played FPSs: Gaz, Capt. Price, Captain Foley, Sgt. Moody, Sev, Scorch, Fixer, Sgt. Johnson, Gunny Sgt. Buck, Mickey, Romeo, Dutch, Capt. Dare, and countless others. All of these characters have deep emotional ties to me and have helped me out through their respective games in good and bad times. I don't see this in modern games now, with the more serious tone cemented as a key component in a lot of modern FPSs. While I believe that having a serious tone in of itself is not bad, the serious tone itself is not an alternative or a substitute to befriending the support characters under fire in a game. As a developer, people need the occasional banter and humor between the characters to heighten the stakes in the game, or risk not caring about the world the developer created. When Gaz got killed, I honestly stopped caring that I saved millions of people in the East Coast of the United States, I cared that I did not save the one that was with me throughout all of it. If a game and game character can inflict the emotional impact I described in this post, imagine how many FPS games could transcend its boorish objectives and mind-numbing explosions to become a memorable title?