quests

one of my many indulgences this summer was the game Horizon: Forbidden West. I loved the first Horizon game when I played and replayed it some years ago. its sequel is just as great.

the art is most glorious, with characters and cultures designed so carefully, so fascinatingly. and most key of all, the gameplay is fun and challenging and relentlessly open-world. we get to play as the obstinate, fearless Aloy, the redheaded chosen one, journeying through the wilderness to literally save the whole planet, heroically helping everyone she can along the way.

I can't quite tell if Forbidden West is more challenging than its predecessor or if I'm only feeling that way because I've successfully beaten the first one twice but have only made it through maybe two-thirds of the sequel. who knows.

some weeks ago I did make it all the way through the main story, but there are at least half a dozen more side quests. maybe more I haven't even discovered yet. fingers crossed I'll have time to play more once the fall semester starts.

almost since the opening cut scenes of this game made its themes so beautifully clear, I've wanted to blog about the analogue between its plot-setting and our own impending collection of climate disasters.

on this version of earth-- far, far in the future--we venture forth to explore and fight and piece together clues amid poisonous red vines, blighted land, thick storms, and corrupted machines making all of it even worse. the communities Aloy encounters tell of ruined farmlands, deepening scarcity, increased violence among the western tribes. barren sand has swept over most of what was once Las Vegas. the sea level has risen to bury San Fransisco. the earth is becoming less and less hospitable.

the game reinforces these threats in mild but consistent ways for the player. if you set foot on the red blight, your character coughs and sputters, losing health points little by little. it's not uncommon to find the bodies of birds, boar, and other wildlife struck down by those deadly vines. when you hunt, you might harvest blighted meat just as often as rich game.

Horizon: Forbidden West presents an open world, with lots of choices about where and what you'll spend your in-character time and effort. but it has limits, too. structure. boundaries. edges-of-the-map.

in real life, we have fewer of those, in some ways. we have real physics and real mortality, but there are no big blatant textual warnings that "you are now leaving the play area. turn back or your unsaved progress will be lost."

in real life, the consequences aren't spelled out like that. not so neatly. not most of the time. 

... or maybe the warnings for us just look different. maybe they are somehow differently blatant. if we pay close enough attention.

 

in real life, how to prevent the worst disasters of climate change is huge and complicated and uncertain. we know we have to do something, but it's overwhelming to think through which exact actions are really the best.

how nice it might be if we, like Aloy and her determined assembly of allies, had a clearly designed path we could follow to save our planet?

follow these clues,

... learn these facts,

.... bravely collect these specific resources from these dangerous conflict zones,

... simply reupload this set of technologies, programs, protocols to reboot this essential system,

... and then watch the world settle swiftly back into equilibrium with itself.

that would be fun, wouldn't it? so rewarding. so simple. 

but games are not like real life.

yesterday I watched Mr. Hank Green walk his audience through the recently passed Inflation Reduction Bill. Hank Green is smart and optimistic and it's a useful video.

games are not like real life. nobody is out there handing out step-by-step instructions for saving the world. we are not disposable video game characters stuck in the gears of a predetermined plot. 

pros and cons, eh? we get no easy checklist of instructions for succeeding at this or that quest... but nor is our path set in stone. nothing written in the stars or the script or the code of the world no matter what. (also no completely malicious, evil, alien masterminds hellbent on destroying everything, either, thankfully.)

life is life. we have to figure it all out on our own. not easy. but hopefully not pointless. 

did I mention the art of these games is glorious? someday I will buy this art book (ooh, this one will be out next year to accompany it, too...) and be able to admire it all off screen.