Mercenary

The presentation of the character at the commencement of the game alone differs greatly from many RPG game character construction introductions in its integration with the gameplay world and the main narrative. The start of the game opens up with a brief cut scene panning through a bus as the radio turns on to play the Ink Spots’ love ballad “I don’t want to set the world on fire”. The camera pans through the bus showing various items such as a tool box, and children’s toys which become fascinatingly morbid as the video continues to pan out to the music which now appears as an ironic accompaniment to the devastation of the world that lays outside the shell of the bus. Following this opening scene, there is a brief title screen, which leads into another scene that documents the nuclear holocaust history through a vintage styled slideshow with a voiceover explaining the war that ravaged the previously shown city and the function of the vaults, which leads into the introduction of the character and the avatar building sequence. As the character wakes up in the vault, the camera cuts to a first person view from the eyes of the character as a baby, just being born. Liam Neeson’s voiceover integrates the playable character’s gender choice and name into the dialogue, as well as an avatar creation option integrated into the narrative from the beginning. This greatly differs from many popular RPG character creation screens, such as World of Warcraft or Diablo that occur prior to injection into the game and are from a selection of set races with pre-loaded facial inputs. Already, this scene integrating the tutorials with short cut scenes gives the player “an experience that is a simulation of the way in which we might act in a hypothetical world.” (Grodal 2003, 142) The ability of the player to change their personal experience through choices in the game ensures no two players will have the exact same experience, which is “… the key element in agency and thus in the feeling of interactivity.” (Grodal 2003, 142) By giving the player an opportunity to present themselves through the playable character, and introducing emotional connections so early on, it allows the agency of the player to flourish and places more weight on the moral implications to the choices being made throughout the narrative.