Violence, above its portrayal as art, above its explanation for brutal actions, is a defining trait and action to a person.  Just the same, it serves to develop whatever character players are following and controlling, in a way that only violence can.  Whether or not someone will commit an act of violence, to what extent they will, and how often, are all violence-centric characteristics that are defined in-game, and can be defined in a way that defines a character and defines a player in a way that makes them one and the same: something of an avatar of who we are.

Examining Dishonored (2012), as discussed in the previous section, violence and non-violence have different impacts on the world and its characters, but more than that, they define the player’s Corvo Attono (player-character).  Is Corvo a more bloodthirsty revenge-seeker, a pacifist on a mission, a mix between the two, depending on the situation and mood?  Players define their characters, and in this case, Corvo, through the actions they undertake in the game: violence and killing.  The specific game mechanics(link me! Game Mechanics) reflect this mode of character development.  When about to overtake an enemy from an unseen position (typically behind them), players can either: kill them, with a quick stab of their sword, all over in the blink of an eye; or they can wrap their arms around their throat and mouth, stifling and knocking them out, but with a struggle-period of a few seconds before the enemy falls unconscious.

On the surface, stifling enemies leaves players out in the open, more visible than had they performed a quick stab.  Conversely, it is also narratively pleasing to not be feared by your partners and preventing the twisting of the young Empress into a bloodthirsty sociopath.  Dishonored reminds players that while killing and violence may be the easier path in the moment, it has long-term repercussions that can be prevented by simply not employing violence.  Similarly, it also recognizes that non-violence is a more difficult means to an end, but in the end, it places charge in players to define how Corvo reacts to this fork in the road, thus developing (or otherwise projecting) what their perception of Corvo is throughout the game.

Spec Ops: The Line (2012) takes violence in a very different way, despite being a conventional war shooter.  The narrative of the game does have players gunning through waves of enemy soldiers, yes, but it’s at certain parts of the narrative where violence shines through as something out-of-the-ordinary, something chosen, and something impacting to the player.  One might even argue that every kill from beginning to end is a choice, too, and even the scripted violence defines both character and player.

In Spec Ops, players keep moving through a ravaged Dubai in order to, at first, rescue and evacuate a stranded American platoon.  This mission turns into one of investigation and, ultimately, blood-soaked revenge.  The player, through their continuing to play, condones that progression and inevitable magnification of violence.  Indeed, their playstyle and continuing to play is just as much a character-definer as Captain Walker’s continually brutal actions in-game.  The same idea follows after the White Phosphorus scene, in which the Delta operators use the deadly weapon to eliminate a large squad of soldiers and, unintentionally, a group of civilians the soldiers were protecting.

The entire scene serves to show Walker questioning and subsequently justifying himself, a huge turning-point for him as a character, but also how far players will go.  This scene was unique in that, after raining down destruction from on-high as a black and white tracking camera, Spec Ops made players wade through the product of their destruction, witnessing the aftermath and the dying croaks of the soldiers, but also come face-to-face with their mistake: the civilians.  Walker does what he can to cope with it, but what players do afterward (how they proceed, if they proceed, if they get more violent as players, etc.) defines them.  In this pivotal scene and throughout the narrative, Spec Ops defines both player and character with violence.

Next, and perhaps more telling of the player and character, are the choices.  In the narrative, players come to grips with three major choices that don’t present explicit choices (there is no “Press X to do 1, Press Y to do 2”): they present players with situations and allow them to act, and it’s these situations that truly define the player and character.  First example: Delta comes to two individuals, a water-robber and a soldier that killed a family in search of the water-robber.  With snipers watching them, Delta is instructed to choose which of the two to kill.  The narrative sneakily doesn’t mention the third option: open fire on the snipers and attempt to free both prisoners, but it is an option.  This is an unseen way to escape violence against the unarmed, if only personally, and if only for an instant.

Second example: an unavoidable act of violence against a deceitful superior.  After destroying Dubai’s dwindling water supply, the plan’s mastermind is pinned under a flaming truck, and there is no way to get him out.  He begs players to end his suffering with a single shot to his head.  But given his deception and destruction, might it be more satisfying to let him die by fire?  One way or another, players will commit an act of violence, by actively, but quickly, ending a life or passively, and painfully, allowing fires to consume him.  How will players allow violence to define them: as an act of mercy, or an act of spite?

Third example: the lynch mob close to the game’s conclusion.  A mob has hanged a separated member of Delta and now surrounds its two remaining members.  The other Delta operator is demanding that the player open fire on the mob to get back at them for their partner’s death.  Players can succumb to those wishes and, in a way, avenge their partner’s death, or take another road and frighten the mob off in order to proceed.  Respectively, they can fire into the crowd, or they can fire above the crowd.  Violence at this point is very important, too: after as many lives as the player has ended, as much destruction as they’ve seen, what do another few kills mean, especially when they killed your partner?  And how much does it take, both player and character, to rise above that and actively consider the alternative?

Final examples: the ending.  First, does the player control Walker to shoot himself and commit suicide?  This form of violence in narrative is especially powerful, because it is violence specifically set against the player-character, a form of judgment given every choice made and the narrative they’ve followed.  Second, if the player did not have Walker commit suicide, then what will they do about the Army squad sent to rescue him?  Just as much as they can be passively rescued, players can open fire on the squad, either overcoming them or being overcome by them: a final act of violence to define where and how Walker’s story ends.

Next, another tale of definition by violence: Mass Effect.  Primarily, the Mass Effect saga is a third-person shooter with dialogue-heavy narrative elements, but beginning in Mass Effect 2 (2010), players were given the chance to perform “Interrupts” (read more in Morality).  Looking at Renegade interrupts, a number of them presented, however unknown they might’ve been to the player, violent interactions with other characters: punching a reporter, headbutting a Krogan, exploding gas tanks, dropping loading machinery on an enemy squad, and so on.  These interactions with the world and the people around Shepard also do a degree of defining who Shepard is, what kind of character they are.  In terms of one that sides with Renegade interrupts, whether all the time, once-in-a-while, or any amount in between, that shows a Shepard that gets things done to a degree this way, with violence.  Violence, in this way, defines Shepard, even if no one explicitly acknowledges the actions again.

 What I think is very interesting about the culture of violence in video games is how it is handled in games that aren’t all about violence.  We recognize that many games present conflict in a way that it is easily solved by violence, but when an adventure-style game comes along, where violence isn’t the main gameplay element, violence becomes something very different: it becomes out-of-the-ordinary.  The prime example that comes to mind here is Telltale’s The Walking Dead (2012).  In a narrative revolving around survival and protection, violence only crops up a few times each episode (five episodes total), and when it does, it truly stands out.  There is a gravity and a weight that comes with the violence in The Walking Dead, and it defines character throughout and especially the player/player-character, Lee Everett.

In the second episode, players have two separate choices regarding two brothers that had been keeping players hostage: to kill them or not.  Different characters may view Lee differently had he killed either of the brothers, especially his young companion, the eight-year-old Clementine.  Regardless of how the brothers treated the group, their deaths still hold gravity, especially coming from Lee’s hands.  Violence here becomes an act of emotion, of revenge for what has been done; with the refusal to succumb to it, however tempting the violence, both are strong definers of character.

In the next, violence is seen as a mercy in two instances: first, killing a defenseless girl as a zombie horde converges on her, and second, choosing whether or not to essentially euthanize Larry’s (a party member) infected son or having Larry do it himself.  Here, violence isn’t necessarily something that is sought, or desired to be done, but rather something to save another from a worse fate, whether death by horde (versus a gunshot to the head) or the trauma of putting down one’s own zombified son.

In the final episode, violence becomes a question of personal morals: firstly, will the player kill the stranger who kidnapped Clementine, or stop short of it?  Is it merciful to let the stranger, mentally broken and emotionally razed, continue to live in this world, or is it more merciful to kill them?  Or, is it out of revenge for the kidnapping that Lee kills the stranger.  Does Lee let hims live out of hope for their recovery?  Here, the violence can take so many different forms, depending on what the player is hoping for and what they believe, in game-world or not.  And finally, the act of violence against oneself: does one tell Clementine to pull a trigger on Lee to prevent the inevitable infection from overtaking him?  Is it worth the trauma for Clementine to end the player’s life, or is it better to leave Lee to the inevitable and save Clem the direct hand in their death?  I believe, especially in the fifth episode, that violence is a culmination of what the player believes to be right; even if there are just two choices (use violence or use the alternative), there are many, many interpretations of why each respective choice is better for an individual player.