Absolutely!
I saw the discussion here when it came out. And now playing it…it’s rather disturbing. It’s like shooting zombies but, oh wait, these are just low level criminals… no irony, no satire. Just shooting the people that are… not with you, but against you. I’m still baffled that’s of no concern to the media/press? It’s not even dehumanizing the enemy… it’s just shooting people in a ‘realistic’ scenario. The only other AAA game I can think of that has this is GTA. And that was at least somewhat controversial when it first came out. And it’s still a very cynical game about things gone wrong. It does not say it’s good/fine what you are doing.
I’ve been beating the hell out of barely ‘guilty’ bad guys based on the most vague of reasons for over 30 years. If gaming has taught me anything it’s that orcs are just like us…now go kill a few thousand why don’t you!? I don’t really see this any differently.
It’s the (vague) contextualizing plus the genre which makes it odd to me: In a MMO-world and a game with emphasis on loot… you need to kill a lot. And when it’s not war, you would normally kill zombies or giant rats - if you need the masses. Or you have your fantasy world with all it’s evil creatures. But imagine L4D or World of Warcraft in a realistic setting… no zombies, no evil… isn’t that different?
In free roam I feel like I’m mass-shooting shoplifters. There is missing context. To me it’s criminal people in the streets and I shoot them. There are too many of them to be all considered dangerous terrorists or whatever. And it’s not war. And they are no zombies. Well, some of them are somewhat crazy dangerous psychos. But again… it’s the end of the world and of course there are bad people that take advantage of the chaos… but shooting them all?
Those ‘vague reasons’ and ‘barely guilty bad guys’ scenarios are well established and I feel The Division is on new territory here. It’s not that a big deal to me; but I’m not sure I like my ‘barley guilty bad guys’ to look like average people (street wear, hoodies, etc.). And I’d prefer not to play that kind of an orc. (Hence I’m somewhat relieved by the flamethrowing guys - these are clearly evil bastards!!)
In terms of socio/ political context, wait until you hear the intro for the second one. There’s a part that reads: “Some of us survived… Did you own a gun? Did your neighbor?”
This is not a happy, utopian vision of the future ;) I’m fine with that, as they don’t push it too far. You’re not killing kids, there’s no sexualized violence (that I recall), slavery or any other mortal sin other than lots and lots of shooting people in other ‘tribes.’
I mean, The Division is functionally the same as every other loot shooter. You have enemy factions that play differently from each other and provide unique challenges. You have piles of gear with numbers you compare against each other to figure out what’s best. And you mow down waves of enemies.
The only difference is that The Division puts some depressing realism CSS on top of this framework, and that’s really jarring. I actually grimaced the other night when I came across a phone recording of a lady leaving a final message for her husband, with her kid making noise in the background.
I’m glad it exists, but I understand why people get turned off when they sit down to play a videogame and the videogame makes them wonder “Would I shoot my neighbor in the face to survive if the apocalypse happened tomorrow?”
Look, it’s got Tom Clancy right there in the name, you knew it was a snake when you picked it up. Did you have the same problem with Sam Fisher’s fifth freedom? Or James Bond’s double-0 status?
There’s a difference between acknowledging something, and being disturbed by it, and railing against something and demanding it be eliminated, banned, whatever. I’m perfectly fine finding The Division’s political and social messages disturbingly fascistic and its glorification of violent “solutions” rather disgustingly simplistic, while still playing and enjoying the game. I don’t know, but I personally don’t feel the game is trying to advocate any of these odious views, and yeah, Clancy’s shit has been like this ever since he started publishing stuff. It’s sort of a bad running joke. So you do know what you are getting into, for sure.
That doesn’t mean, though, I can’t critique the game and lambaste certain parts of it. Does that make me a hypocrite? I guess so, if you want to be totally absolutist about everything. I listen to Wagner, watch Sean Connery in movies, and even own a copy of Appetite for Destruction, all of which are products of some pretty twisted people.
In free roam and in DZ I actually don’t shoot first. In DZ because I play as ninja loot bunny (avoid pvp, just going for loot and div tech), I tend to stay under the radar. Gunfire draws attention so I do sneak around. I can defend myself (got a 6 piece classified nomad and the House), that doesn’t mean I need to go all aggro on everything.
Especially elite LMB and Rikers you want them alive so when you run into a rogue, you can run towards them and let them melt the rogue, or force the rogue to back off. Three LMB or Rikers focus fire can melt anything in 5-6 seconds.
And @divedivedive my Sam Fisher is basically a ghost, or at least always non lethal. Until Conviction and Blacklist where he is railroaded to be a mass murderer. Although for Blacklist I’ve see total ghost playthrough on YouTube with zero kills. It is tough but possible.
You can probably play Division that way too, just team up with a bunch of people that don’t share your social conscience, let them do all the killing, then follow along and grab all the loot. It’s a win/win!
We see a point of no return, and we see people coming together. What does the scene tell us was the crux of that transition? The narrator offers the answer via a question mid-scene:
“With no police to protect you, did you own a gun? Did your neighbor?”
I always love the police will protect you thing. That’s not what police do. They arrest people after the fact, mostly. Sometimes, the threat of being arrested or worse deters people from crimes. Most of the time, it doesn’t. What protects people mostly is the social fabric, the general social contract that holds that hurting people or taking their stuff is wrong. Without that, no amount of police could make a society function.
So, these games really aren’t about the police being gone, they are about the social contract unraveling. Which is a perfectly legitimate theme for a game, all things considered.
