By Kyle Carpenter
Unmanned is a game about delusions. Presented on two screens simultaneously, it has us follow a man and his inner thoughts through his day in the employ of the US military piloting an unmanned aircraft. Our task is to influence his performance in his external and internal world. Ultimately, the goal of the game is to perform the role of this character just as he performs his own life.
In this game, produced by Jim Munroe and the always polemical Molleindustria, we follow this unnamed pilot from just before the moment he wakes up to the moment he falls asleep. The game begins in his dream, where he is on the ground in Afghanistan, running from angry Muslim citizens. Fleeing, he transforms into a plane and begins to fly from this nightmare. Importantly, this is the moment that he wakes up, panting.
Unmanned is all about disconnections: from other people, from one’s own actions, from one’s own thoughts. This emerges most tellingly in the dual screen; in order to complete the game, one has to navigate the cursor from one window to the other, losing control in one in order to complete a task in the other. Keep the car on the road, but remember the lyrics to the song. Flirt with your coworker, but keep your sights trained on a possible insurgent. Spend time with your son, but play a video game while doing so. Our hero remains distracted throughout, navigating between two focuses, two states of being, at all times attempting to be two things at once.
Why? For “medals,” a particularly cynical use of omnipresent “cheevos.” Our man imagines rewards he receives for outstanding service: shaving, maintaining a peaceful relationship with his wife, killing Afghans. Each are presented equally, the mundane sharing space with military service. He knows full well what he is supposed to do, and honours his efforts with illusory rewards–even when those roles conflict or contradict each other. Speaking on the phone with his wife, he rewards himself for maintaining the relationship. Flirting with his coworker, he rewards himself for getting a date on the weekend. Both are ultimately roles he is playing, men he wants to be, and the one is the truth of the other: the truth of his marriage is that he is cheating, the truth of his flirtations is that he is trying to be a husband. Both truths reveal delusions about who he is, which fill gaps in his life.
The core of the game reveals itself in a dialogue choice. Speculating on the enemy, our hero has the choice of saying, “delusional thinking is the refuge of the losing side.” The significance should be clear: sitting in a trailer in the middle of the desert, acting as the hand of god in a country he doesn’t understand, this man tries to believe he is a hero. This slip in his thoughts betrays him, shows him for what he is. He has already lost. And he knows it.
Unmanned is a game about being removed from your own life, about the fear of catching an honest glimpse of oneself. That’s why this pilot of an unmanned aircraft wakes up when, in his dream, he flies away. The dream ends by presenting the truth of his situation, that he is running away, living in a fantasy world that doesn’t need to confront the realities of the ground level. It is this truth that he spends the rest of his day attempting to defend himself from. This shared delusion that we participate in, by thinking that we are only playing a “game”; what else are games if not escapes?
Mirrors, perhaps?
Unmanned is a game by Jim Munroe and Molleindustria .
