Wednesday 17 January, 2018

So, I decided to just jump in after not touching Shadow of Mordor for almost three years, and it was still fun to go back into and play around in, albeit after some frustration over relearning the controls. As a perfectionist and trophy hunter, the first thing I did was run over to an orc captain and poison him at his own feast. Naturally, this made me ponder the ethicality of my actions, as well as the actions I had perpetrated during my playthrough years earlier. Mind-control, murder, deception and coercion, torture, and the list goes on from there. This is all presented to the player as a form of power fantasy for them to indulge in, with little in the form of commentary or criticism. After all, these are orcs we're talking about here, and they're the stereotypical fantasy bad guys! I will say that I haven't played through the story in a long time, so I can't say for certain whether or not the game does in fact comment on this beyond "the end justifies the means, they're totally evil, go at it". It definitely proves to be fertile ground for personal reflection, as hopefully the previous paragraph demonstrates.

Anyways, after poisoning said Captain I soothed my conscience by mindcontrolling a slave driver into releasing his slaves. I proceeded to kill a few more orcs, then avenge my brother's death at the hands of a captain undoubtedly years earlier. Revenge is fun!

Great job James! You make a lot of interesting observations about the lack of commentary on the game’s core mechanics and how the game is presented to the player as a sort of power fantasy. One question to consider would be is do game developers have an obligation to provide some sort of commentary when a game has questionably “immoral” mechanics and gameplay objectives or is it the player’s responsibility to evaluate their own actions within the game?

Clay