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the-pandering-fool · 5 years

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Disconnection is it a good thing?

In a world where video games are as prevalent as they are plentiful, how do they disconnect us from reality in a way we can kill and steal from just about anyone and feel no remorse? More importantly, is that a good thing?

At their core video games are an escape from reality that allow us (the player) to do things we never thought possible, or that we’ve always wanted to do without any real consequence. It’s because of this that many people love them, they can slay dragons and save the princess, be what they aren’t, and do so from the comfort of their own homes.

Being able to do impossible things has always driven mankind to great heights, it drove the Wright Brothers to build the first (functional) planes, Thomas Edison to make the incandescent light bulb and the phonograph. Needless to say it can accomplish amazing things. It’s what led people to make the first narrative driven games, they were a marvel of entertainment, for the first time rather than just being an observer you were the hero. These games gave you control and made an experience uniquely its own, like salted caramel. It’s a wonderful thing they do letting anyone be anything for any reason.

Let’s take an example of a relatively recently released game Monster Hunter World (let’s call it MHW from here on out). In MHW you take on the role of a Hunter, someone who hunts Monsters - giant dangerous beasts with strange abilities - for science. I know that sounds a bit weird but we’ll talk about that later. What we’re going to talk about now, is how MHW uses common strategies in media to make players follow it’s narrative, not feel bad about hunting the dozens of monsters, harvesting their skin to craft various weapons and armor, and to keep hunting.

Most video games use some common strategies to make the player feel like they’re not responsible for any bad decisions they make. One of these strategies is called dissociation — in other words, disconnecting the player from the character they’re playing. In MHW one thing the do to achieve this is they never call you by name, instead they give you the title of Hunter or occasionally call you Fiver (a title given because you are from the 5th research fleet). They also call every other Hunter this too so don’t feel special just yet. By doing this they make you feel less important and like you’re one of many, and it’s not a bad thing to start with. MHW draws a clear line between you and your expectations, but also leave room for interpretation and character development, saying you have to earn your place here, and until you do you’re just a gear in the machine. And eventually you do, in the end you are granted the title of Sapphire Star, this title has significance in the lore of MHW so it’s quite an honor for you to have.

It’s not an easy road to earn your place in the world though, you need to be a skilled Hunter and craft some pretty strong gear to beat the final boss in MHW. You might be asking what I mean by “crafting strong gear”, in MHW progression is both locked by story, player skill, and gear. This means that you’ll have to keep hunting specific monsters to harvest materials, or mats, to make better weapons and armour so it doesn’t take an hour to kill a monster or you don’t die by a sneeze from a stronger one. Monster slaying is exactly what the game wants the player to do as well! By locking things behind progression walls the game makes you play more and more to fight stronger and cooler monsters.

In MHW the payer is given many ways to hunt as well. There are 14 different weapon classes each with their own unique set of skills and fighting styles. And let me tell you choosing just one is extremely hard. I myself use about 4 of them on a regular basis, the Insect Glaive (IG), Charge Blade (CB), Longsword (LS), and Switch Axe (SA). These names alone probably don’t mean much to you do they? I’m gonna get a bit technical here so if you’re not as big a nerd as I am skip ahead to the next part which I’ll mark with an * for you.

Now allow me to get into the nitty gritty of the IG for you as it is my personal favorite weapon. The IG is a powerful weapon used to give a player a much needed aerial advantage in combat. It has two main features which are its ability to propel a hunter into the air and stay there, and the Kinsect.

The Kinsect is your own little buggy buddy that helps you hunt more effectively by gathering different extracts from monsters. These extracts are categorized by color, red is attack, by collecting it your moveset changes and you’re able to dish out more damage, orange is defense/resistance, it gives you a small buff to your defense and elemental resistances, white is an amplifier, it boosts the effectiveness of the other extracts, and finally there’s green, it heals you just a little bit. And this is just 1 of 14 different weapon archetypes you can use. They also get even more complicated as well so there’s definitely a learning curve involved, but if you can master a weapon practically nothing can stop you.

*Some of you might be arguing that we as the player are destroying the ecosystem by going out and slaughtering these creatures and that’s wrong. It’s true that if you were to go out on a mission to kill every squirrel in existence you would damage the ecosystem. However in MHW every monster you hunt is an apex predator, meaning they’re at the top of the food chain and the only thing that they have to worry about are the other monsters you’ll eventually hunt.

Plus you need to have a suspension of belief to properly enjoy most games anyway, meaning you need to recognize that what you’re doing has no real world consequences. You can hunt a Legania a thousand times and you’re still gonna have to go to work on Monday.

I talked about the fact that you are hunting for science earlier and it’s true. In MHW you are exploring a brand new continent, dubbed the new world, and have very limited information on the creatures that live there. So it’s your job not only to hunt these monsters but to study them. You can even capture them and bring them back to your base so the rest of the research team can examine them further, this might not be the smartest way to do it, but hey it works. MHW encourages this by giving you bounties to hunt specific monsters and rewarding you with currency and mats. Plus the more you hunt a monster the better you get at it. You’re able to track them better, learn their individual quirks, such as what the best element to use while hunting them is. And you can do it with each of the many monsters making mayhem and mischief. Over time you learn their habits, you learn their weaknesses, and you learn their faults.

One of my personal favorite monsters from MHW is the aforementioned (and shown above yay for gifs!) Legania. It is, on the most basic level, an ice dragon. The Legania is also a ‘boss’ monster, it’s the true apex predator of one of the environments. At first the Legania is a pain in the ass to hunt, it’s nimble, has a variety of AOE attacks, and can fly. If you jump right in and try fighting it Leroy Jenkins style you’re probably gonna get carted (die) a few times.

On the other hand if you stay back and watch how it moves and interacts with the environment, you’ll learn that when it lands it becomes extremely vulnerable, and that you can force it to land in some places by placing bait. The game rewards you for playing the way it wants you to. Just like any other game there are proper ways to play where you get the best results.

Another strategy MHW uses is Immersion. It creates a world that makes sense and draws the player in. It accomplishes this by showing how the different creatures interact in the areas you explore. The player is constantly reminded how dangerous their job is by seeing the more docile herbivores eaten and hunted by the dominant predators. Even the predators fight in aptly named “turf wars”. The player can be hunting one creature and out of nowhere a bigger, stronger one can finish the job by flinging it around like a chew toy. In some instances you can also find two monsters fighting over food, or their hunting grounds overlap and they proceed to fight for dominance, the loser leaving the area wounded but still alive.

By giving players attainable goals, an immersive world, unique and challenging opponents, and many ways to play MHW does a great job disconnecting players from the real world. Yes, getting too lost in a game is a bad thing, but sometimes that’s exactly what someone needs. By giving players an outlet to forget the chaos of the world around them video games are an amazing thing. Moderation is the key to not only enjoying, but enjoying video games healthily. That’s right, it’s as simple as mere moderation. So next time you have a bad day, or maybe just need to shut out the day to day chaos of the world, grab a controller, hit up your friends, and just lose yourself in a good game.

#monster hunter world #morals

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