Warning: The following post contains plot spoilers for the final chapters of Mirror’s Edge.
“Complete the game without shooting an enemy.”
This is the description for the “Test of Faith” Achievement in Mirror’s Edge, and it highlights one of the more interesting ways to play the game. It is also a lie, in spirit if not in fact. As worded it is possible to earn the Achievement but it is technically impossible to accurately fulfil the requirements of it.
At the end of Chapter 7 there is a cut-scene where Faith take a handgun from the adversary she has been chasing throughout the previous level and uses it to shoot an oil drum between her and a force of approaching paramilitary Private Security personnel. The resulting explosion is responsible for the destruction of a building, and according to a news report heard later the death of dozens. Even if, as Faith believes, the news is not to be trusted the likelihood that anybody nearby surviving the blast is negligible.
From that moment on Faith has become a murderer, in an act totally beyond their control she has taken actions that could well be entirely at odds with the desires of the player. Up to that point I had chosen to avoid combat, and though I had been forced to disarm and incapacitate some of my pursuers I always left them breathing; or at least I could tell myself that. There was that one exception where I kicked somebody off a building, but that was an accident and I actually did felt bad about it, leading to a surprising moment of reflection.
I was smarter, faster, I didn’t need to resort to violence and everything about the game supported this as a valid option, Faith’s actions and attitude throughout the early cut-scenes gave credence to this, she wasn’t a killer. Even the Objectives screen made a point of informing me that “So far, you have not fired a shot at anybody”, it knew the kind of person I was.
That all came tumbling down at the end of Chapter 7, whatever feelings I had about Faith as a character, whatever decisions I had made about the type of person she was were invalidated by a “cool” cut-scene. There was no need for her to murder those people, she’d escaped worse situations before, I know, I was there. It is true that Faith had just found out she had been betrayed, was angry but that is not much of an excuse. She had never let emotion get in the way before, if she had she’d never have been able to keep moving while under near constant duress. Furthermore if she’d not seen that particular betrayal coming she really hadn’t been paying attention; but that’s a complaint for another time.
It is a perfect example of the dichotomy between game mechanics and narrative. The former allowed me to express myself in a way that the latter would subsequently invalidate. In one I could be the agile runner, who avoided violence whenever possible, in the other I was the driven murderer, out for revenge and to hell with anybody else. I could not reconcile both, and so lost all respect or empathy for either.
There is simply no reason for the actions portrayed in that particular cut-scene. It is possible to show Faith escaping in a way that is fitting for both players who engaged in combat and those avoided it. In one moment the game had broken the tacit agreement between us. It had failed to respect my character decisions, it had made a pretense of allowing me to define whether Faith was violent or not only to pull the rug away at the vital moment and strip all control. It lied. Any actions I might have taken to avoid combat up to then were for nothing. It had failed to show me respect so had lost mine.
I can’t say that the storyline of Mirror’s Edge is compelling but it had been interesting enough for me to be invested in finding out how things would play out. From Chapter 8 on I was playing simply to finish the game, I had lost any interest in the characters or their fate. It had been made abundantly clear that nothing I did had any really impact.
When any choices I make about my character and their role in the world are going to be ignored why should I even bother making them? Why should I care at all?
11 replies on “Out of your control.”
The cutscenes in Mirror’s Edge had a lot of problems, both in terms of content and presentation, but this one was certainly the biggest.
I might be seeing something that isn’t there to justify things in my mind, but in that cutscene, I wasn’t convinced Faith killed anyone. She shot the fuel barrels sure, but the paras were wearing a ton of body armour. I figured P&K destroyed the building themselves and lied to the news (or didn’t need to) rather than look incompetent. After all, their motives was to prove the Metro police were insufficient and the city needed to take a contract with them instead.
Likely though, I’m just seeing what I want to see. In any case, I too wish more thought had been give to those cutscenes (and that one in particular) so they wouldn’t required so much *ahem* faith.
I too felt by desired to complete the game non-violently were betrayed, yes because of the cut scene, but also because of the frustrating levels where eliminating large numbers of enemies was the only option to progress. I tried so hard not to kill anyone. I even disarmed the guy you kicked off the roof of the building without killing him. Faith did not turn out to be the character I wanted her to be, and the game glossed over the murders despite my non-violent history.
I’ve said so much on my own posts, but again, I think Dice relied too heavily on FPS conventions and tainted the narrative as well as the gameplay.
Interesting to consider that in most of the game (Ignoring the cut-scenes) Faith says very little. To the extent that she might as well be a silent protagonist.
If the ‘you haven’t shot anyone yet’ notice, and to a lesser extent the Achievement, didn’t exist, then idea that you could go through the game that way would be more of a piece of trivia then a refection (sorry) of Faith’s character. After all, you’re trained in weapon acquisition during the tutorial. Justify the cutscene gunfire a hot-blooded/self-defense moment, if it helps, but EA/DICE did not make Faith a silent protagonist ready for personality projection, instead the gave her a personality, and a ruthless streak, but maybe in not as clear a manner as they hoped
According to an interview with the game’s writer, a lot of Faith’s dialog was was written but later cut. According to the writer (Rhianna Pratchett) she was was brought into the project late, perhaps that is the root cause of this disconnect. (the interview hasn’t been published yet, which bugs since I can’t get paid for doing it until it does, but it’s true, drop me a line and I’ll send you an excerpt)
@Writercabal:
Personally I’m not partial to that kind of “forced failure” though I can understand it’s place in when it comes to telling a compelling narrative. I think if the cut-scene had seen Faith accidently causing the death of another character[s] I would have been a little frustrated but I doubt it would have had the same impact as it does in its current form.
During play I did kill somebody by accident myself, that unfortunate soul I managed to kick off the building. So ultimately one event mirrors something that could and in fact did happen to “my” Faith; the other depicted something that would never have happen to “my” Faith.
If the cut scene hadn’t been about the player character committing a character choice (murdering) but had been about the player character killing people by accident, would that have felt better to you? You still wouldn’t be in control, though…
I’ve always found it very interesting how… tempting and outright WRONG the use of guns in ‘Edge was.
Disarming people is easy. Then just shooting your way through any present opponents can actually make things a lot easier…
But I’ve always percieved this as a wrong move, as a somewhat crossing over to the dark side and giving in to the temptation of going the easy way and REALLY getting into trouble. There is a diffrence between “that girl single handedly took out one of our best squads – BARE HANDEDLY!” and “terrorist steals policeman’s gun – shoots and kills pursuing police squad.”
I mean… The one gets you a “handle with care” tag from the opponents, the other a “kill on sight” one.
Not that this would make a diffrence in how the games enemies actually behave, but it’s sufficient in making a diffrence to me.
“I’ve always found it very interesting how… tempting and outright WRONG the use of guns in ‘Edge was.”
Ditto, I just don’t see the point. It’s like DICE couldn’t get their minds off of the FPS genre. They HAD to have guns, even though it made no sense whatsoever.
The melee combat was not implemented well by any means, but at least it’s in-character and being shot at created a sense of urgency, but shooting? This is a game about running for god’s sake, let me run and be chased.
Here’s my answer, it doesn’t matter. It’s a cutscene. It’s not real. There is no betrayal, there is no forced failure. This isn’t an unwinnable boss fight. This is a cutscene.
The point of the achievement isn’t sparing Faith from being a murderer or not, the game doesn’t care, the plot doesn’t care. The point is to create interesting play.
Ludonarrative dissonance isn’t something that exists as a kink towards games becoming this great storytelling medium that we’ll eventually work out with vigilance.
Ludonarrative dissonance exists because of the essential conflict between the needs of the narrative to tell a story, showcase results, the functional needs of the game to open up processes for the player to explore and dominate. As the game becomes more open, more deep, it will necessarily enable the player to contradict the ostensible narrative one way or another, or it may simply contradict it by the necessity to create a compelling system of play. As the story becomes more detailed it will necessarily force more rigid results or branches of results onto the actors in it, including the player character.
It’s not about Faith not shooting an enemy, it’s about YOU not shooting an enemy, not taking the easy way out, because you want to push yourself more. It’s there for a gameplay reason. Reread the achievement description and leave your ethical quandaries in the trashbin by the door.
I find the concept of “ludonarrative dissonance” to be a frustrating over simplification of a complex interaction between players and games and that’s why I avoided using the term.
Yes it was a cutscene, that isn’t a particularly compelling argument. Faith’s actions in that cutscene added nothing to the game, there were no consequences to that act and the game barely even registered that it occurred. There was no reason for that cutscene to play out the way it did when it could have played out in a way that didn’t contradict the experiences of any players, which was something Thief: The Dark Project was particularly good at. That Faith was now clearly a murder bothered me, you can take issue with the reasons why I was annoyed, but that won’t change either the fact that it occurred or that it bothered me.
“As the game becomes more open, more deep, it will necessarily enable the player to contradict the ostensible narrative one way or another, or it may simply contradict it by the necessity to create a compelling system of play. As the story becomes more detailed it will necessarily force more rigid results or branches of results onto the actors in it, including the player character.” There is nothing necessary about any of those outcomes, they are just what will happen if we continue implementing play and story as two strictly separate aspects that have little impact on each other. That doesn’t need to continue to be the case.