Roundtable: Bonding With Characters

Question: How can games develop meaningful relationships between the player and its characters? What kind of mechanics help develop a bond – and what are your favorite instances of those mechanics?

Andy: I feel like personal context is most important for “meaningful” relationships between the player and characters. Making characters and the scenarios or decisions they face as relatable as possible, even in a fantasy world or hyper unrealistic universe, is key. In order to do that you have to develop a story that builds and supports the complexity of their character. Decision moments that permanently and irreversibly alter a character or story, that leave lasting impacts on gameplay or the evolution/progression of the story, could be a potential mechanic to create the tension and agency necessary for a player to register meaning; The Walking Dead is the first game that comes to mind. This burden is not solely the game’s responsibility though: players should pay close attention to the story and characters and internalize and digest these things as a means of being mindful about what they consume.

Tales of Berseria‘s protagonist experiences a life altering situation that changes her from sweet and timid to raging and revenge-driven over the course of a few frames in a cut-scene, despite dramatic physical, mental, and spiritual blows. She never had time to develop these new ill traits, she simply became them. It’s very dissonant with her otherwise relatable character and placid demeanor; the change doesn’t make sense no matter how devastating the situation. Characters need to be relatable, or at least at a primal level understandable, in order to generate some sense of instinctual empathy before it blossoms into something meaningful for the player.

Blake: I’d like to piggyback off Andy’s example from The Walking Dead, where the bond between Lee and Clementine translates onto the player where we feel, by game’s end, responsible for her safety. This translation happens slowly in The Walking Dead, as we see Clem grow up in progressive ways that culminate in the story’s unforgettable final choice. I also want to agree with Andy’s point about how a relatable character grounds even fantastical and unrealistic games. I think of my recent playthrough of Night in the Woods, where character is the bedrock to the game; we play the game because we identify with these characters, not merely because of plot or setting. Finally – and this brings us back to the first podcast episode of LudonarrativeFM – in Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, we have no dialogue, just a tactile relationship with two joysticks, each corresponding to one of the two brothers. Their relationship develops on screen as each new puzzle mechanic is introduced, and our gameplay literally creates their bond. The ending of Brothers displayed loss through this mechanic in a way that I have never seen elsewhere: one brother dies, and so does that side of the controller. You are left, physically, with a loss.

All three examples illustrate the nuance within Ben’s question: the relationship between player and character is not always mechanically driven (but, when done, is very powerful), choice based, or even specific to the characters themselves. I think Andy is onto something when he mentions that the relationship between character and player is “not solely the game’s responsibility,” counterintuitive thought it may seem.

Ben: Not that I, too, wouldn’t love to use Telltale’s The Walking Dead as an example (seriously, I don’t think I’ve ever cared for a character as much as I have for Clementine), but I’ll use an example that isn’t often brought up in these kinds of conversations: Elizabeth, from Bioshock Infinite. Ken Levine, the creator behind the Bioshock franchise, has famously talked about the difficulty of Elizabeth’s inclusion as a dynamic source of storytelling. It’s no mistake that classic companion characters, like Ellie from The Last of Us, followed shortly afterward. Elizabeth, who is locked away when Booker (the game’s protagonist) first finds her, is enamored with the possibilities of the world. Because her character is so tightly linked to everything done in the game, you get to witness her reaction to things like music, weather and people – all of which she is experiencing for the first time. Her character feels genuinely human, which instantly developed into something meaningful for me. Given that her only gameplay mechanic is tied to helping the player, flipping them ammo for a weapon or some loose change when she finds it, it seems plausible that Levine knew he could further this relationship between the player (and Booker, as the avatar) and Elizabeth by allowing her to help alleviate the challenges rather than elevate them.

Speaking of companion characters, I’ve long made the argument that the often frustrating controls behind Trico’s use in The Last Guardian is an example of a meaningful relationship behind built through mechanics. The game’s central motif seems to be communication and the difficulties regarding language and emotive barriers. Is it possible the lack of strengthened mechanics – i.e. Trico not always doing what you want him to via the control scheme – can be a way to form a meaningful bond with that character (by overcoming those challenges)? It seems almost as likely that these unresponsive controls could just be poor game design. Am I crazy for thinking it could be something deeper?

Blake: Ben, I have often taken some criticism from defending the apparently capricious control scheme for Trico in TLG. In my own playthrough, Trico’s unresponsiveness to commands felt more like an animal not quite understanding the precise meaning of your language, but still being able to contextually hear your tone and pitch to deduce something akin to meaning. Fumito Ueda has toyed around with this idea in interviews, that part of Trico’s majesty is the foreignness of it. We might not feel so attached if Trico were too real, or if it behaved like an errand boy. To your point, Ben, sometimes frustrating controls can actually build rather than break the bonds between character and player. Trico isn’t a slave, and the boy in TLG is no master.

Check back every other week for the latest Epilogue Gaming Roundtable. Follow us and our thoughts on @EpilogueGames or @LudonarrativeFM on Twitter. If you’d like, consider supporting our work on Patreon for as little as $1 a month. This roundtable was edited by Blake Andrea.