Editor’s Note: this article contains minor spoilers for Mass Effect 2.
By Steven Sukkau
The recent hullabaloo over Mass Effect 3 ‘s endings was inevitable. Given the unprecedented amount of personal choice and a trilogy’s worth of emotional investment, it’s no wonder BioWare couldn’t provide an ending that would satisfy their customers with their infinite diversity of personal stories and experiences in the Mass Effect games.
The resulting outcry was inevitable. I say this not because I feel that the creators were overambitious, but rather because the entitled sense of “choice” BioWare created in gamers was built on a lie. What the ending of Mass Effect 3 shows is that we never had any real control over the story; the reigns were always tightly in the hands of others.
It’s led me to question: was there really ever such a thing as player choice in Mass Effect ?
I mean, we can certainly choose how to achieve our goal. We can be snarky or honey sweet. We can use long range weapons or we can specialize in close quarters combat. Whether I bend the laws of physics through biotics or devote myself to guncraft, there is an illusion that my Shepard is different from yours. I may choose to play as a lothario bedding every alien that comes my way, or a no-nonsense career military woman paying no mind to romantic possibilities. Factors such as my gender, mate, or whether or not I annihilated a bug-like race make it seem my time with Mass Effect was unique.
But the end result is the same. Every player overcomes enemies, through weaponry or biotics. We complete the objective, retrieve the information/prisoner, and travel to the same planets regardless of the attitude we envision for our Shepards. What were our choices? Were they just related to how surly or sweet our mood was that day? I think the truth is that we completed the game in increments, at the pace the designer intended. While we have input into pieces of the story, I think we’ve mistaken these aesthetic choices for true agency.
So maybe “choice” in games is a misnomer, an illusion; it’s an over-idealized virtue in modern games that doesn’t reflect the truth of the situation. We like the feeling of control, but we also demand the assurance of an invisible guiding hand through devices such as level design, cinematic cameras, and narrative progression. Because in the end, game design is just that: a design, a preconceived pattern created by someone else.
Consider this: if we imagine videogames like a dramatic performance, instead of an arena where we can really “shape the story” as BioWare insists, then what is evident is that we aren’t really actors in an ever-changing narrative. Instead, players are closer to an audience participating at a concert. We can alter our experience in certain small ways, changing the mood by raising our hands, clapping along or sitting down. Even if we obnoxiously request songs, what we have to admit is that in the end, the performers are the only players with real “choice.” Like the BioWare writers, they determine how and when concert plays out. We can cheer and stomp for an encore, we can chant or boo until they come back on stage, but our control is limited. And, as audience members, that’s the way we like it.
Let’s be honest: we don’t have the kind of control we were promised. But that’s not a bad thing. Everyone tells you “actions have consequences in my game,” but to have a game with real choice, some of those consequences need to utterly ruin the experience to fit the narrative. I’m talking, you can either save the galaxy or spend the rest of the game as a trillium farmer on the moon of Prometheus, kind of choices. And yes, you would hate your life on Prometheus, but that’s your choice. And no, you can’t finish the rest of the story; go back to your trillium market watch report.
Basically, true choice means, not dying and starting over, but taking the “other” path, the one less travelled, and living with the consequences. Choice means changing your destination. If everyone ends up in the same place, you never really had a choice.
And BioWare flirts with this idea, but never courts it. Yes, it’s emotionally devastating to watch Kelly Chambers get liquified because you took your sweet time rescuing your crew in Mass Effect 2 . But in the end, they knew you wouldn’t care about a relatively unknown character, which nullifies the significance of the choice. Risk is the only measure of free will; without a wrong choice, there’s no point in choosing.
And this is where Mass Effect , for all its choices, still resembles the “But thou must!” moment of Dragon Warrior ; when all roads lead to Rome, it means there never was any other choice in the first place. It’s just a puff of smoke and pyrotechnics to distract your eyes long enough for the BioWare magicians to retain their narrative authority. Because unless you want your Shepard to spend his or her days raising baby Rachni while the universe is killed off by the Reapers, we need to give up the reigns to writers. But that’s what good stories need.
Further Reading: “I’d Rather Be Mauled By a Bear Than Save The World” (Medium Difficulty)
“Why I’m in the Cult of Far Cry 2″ (Medium Difficulty)
