Bit of an explanation as to what prompted me to make this post: I recently played through Sniper Ghost Warrior: Contracts 1 and 2 and I just felt off. I’ve slaughtered hundreds of innocents for my amusement in games like Fallout and TES, I play through No Russian with a grin, but for some reason, I refrain from killing bad guys in SGW? The first one has you hunt down Russian oligarchs and war criminals, while the second one is about Middle Eastern terrorists and this is the game where I feel bad about killing? There’s just something about the soldiers talking about their daily problems like making no money, uncomfortable boots and sweating too much, or showing eachother pictures of their dogs, not to mention the absolute horror when you’ve got a knife against their throat or when they find a body. I hope this isn’t weird, but I’ve never experienced remorse for killing a video game enemy, and I’ve played a lot of different games. I’d like to hear about your experiences, and which games do a good job humanising common enemies, the concept intrigues me.
I think the first one I played as a kid that made me question “oh no, what am I doing?!” was William Shatner’s TekWar.
If you pointed a gun at a civilian in that game, they would cower down and get scared, and say things like “don’t shoot me!” It was the first time I’d ever seen that in a game. https://youtu.be/mtwAnmwmv_s?si=yvVkpJuNTuuygSfK
Much more recently, the VR version of Superhot made me feel bad. Even though. They are just blank polygonal people trying to kill you, I realized I didn’t want the muscle memory of hitting someone in the face with a hammer