Required progress-styles of violence require players to defeat enemies before being able to narratively proceed; firefights and skirmishes are popular incarnations of this.  Games like Gears of War, Dead Space, and Spec Ops: The Line rely on required progress, forcing players to defeat their enemies before the next area opens up.  By forcing players into this requirement, some games shift around their mechanics of violence in order to accompany and heighten the narrative.

Gears of War (2006-13) is a game and narrative that revolves around violence: not only do players have to employ violence to proceed, but they can employ so many different kinds of violence.  Shoot a bad guy until they’re good and dead with any variety of firearms, sure, but why not kick the bad guy in its face?  Flip it over and slam your foot on its face?  Rev a chainsaw bayonet through their hide?  Beat them about the head with any number of weapons?  The possibilities are numerous throughout the series, and in the case of Gears of War, their presence and variety could also have narrative purpose.

Think: the setting-world of Sera has been embroiled in this war between humans and the subterranean Locust for sixteen years, not counting the human-versus-human wars preceding the Locust war.  Especially with the war against the Locust, whose underground guerilla warfare left humanity in shambles mere weeks after contact, humans have devoted all of their resources to fighting or advancing the war.  There has been no opening for the arts, whether their advancement or creation, but one can argue that art, no matter the form it takes, is inherently human.  But even in a world where all one knows is war, human arts will persevere, even if it isn’t the conventional art we associate the term with.  The creative ways humans have come up with to kill, given the tools and weapons at their disposal (executions), is an art unto itself, like a different art of war.  In this case, violence serves as a form of general characterization, for the entire human race: this is what they know, and whether they realize it or not, this is where their creativity funnels in.

Dead Space (2008-2013) follows Isaac Clarke, an engineer, as he ventures through the derelict USG Ishimura on a repair mission gone wrong.  Infesting the ship are terrifying, inhuman creatures, Necromorphs, which seek to destroy or convert Isaac and every other living being.  Given the scenario and the desperation of the situation, there isn’t a chance of diplomacy or peacemaking to be had.  Both sides, for their existence to continue, go forth with the intent to make sure that the other side doesn’t walk off the Ishimura alive.

The Necromorphs, in their terrifying form, often complete with giant blades on their bodies, will kill Isaac in the most brutal and merciless ways possible; this tends to involve decapitation and dismemberment.  And while it’s gory and scary for the genre, the violence from Necromorph-to-Isaac is particularly brutal and unnecessary, which strengthens their position as malevolent (from humanity’s view) extraterrestrials.  In fact, their obsession with literally ripping Isaac limb from limb may stem from Necromorphs’ own physiologies; dismemberment of the arms stands as the easiest way to kill a Necromorph, not necessarily a standard ‘headshot.’  Violence coming from Necromorphs, therefore, is an act of projection and not fully understanding human physiology: they, too, go for the limbs and just keep hacking away until Isaac stops moving.

Isaac, on the other hand, is the only human players get to see in active combat; there are other humans, but they’re oftentimes safe from harm’s way.  It’s only Isaac that runs into the thick of it and sees combat.  Within the first fifteen minutes of Dead Space, he and the player have seen half of their team annihilated by the new Necromorph threat, and spend immediately afterward running away, as Isaac lacks a weapon.  Once Isaac has a weapon, players can use that; from a distance, Isaac is calm, collected, and steady with his weapon.  But when the Necromorphs get too close, that’s when we see the important kind of violence: Isaac gets truly scared.  Even though Isaac learns early on what the best way to kill Necromorphs is (again, dismemberment, generally the arms), that only applies when they’re far away.  This isn’t a violence that we see in Gears of War, where both sides are armed similarly; this is a violence spurned on by primal fear.

Imagine the sudden rush of adrenaline you experience when faced with a fight-or-flight situation; self-defense, possible injury (or injury itself), and fear are all such triggers.  The body, with the flow of adrenaline and bodily changes in a fight-or-flight situation, zero in on effectively combating or escaping the threat.  Isaac experiences this through any of his melee attacks: the controlled attacks, an arm swing and a foot stomp, are always accompanied with a rough grunt or cry of the force behind it, to say nothing of the brutal, finishing strength behind each attack, a result of increased blood flow.

In addition, when enemies get too close, they can latch onto Isaac, triggering a Quick-Time Event, or QTE (pressing a button rapidly to escape a situation).  Completing an enemy QTE will have Isaac overpowering his foe and, with whatever adrenaline is pumping through his body, ensuring they won’t stand up again: bludgeoning a creature with his weapon, tearing off its arms, and so on.  In these cases, the violence is a human response to injury and fear: a fight-or-flight reaction when there’s nowhere to fly to.

Spec Ops: The Line (2012) explores violence as a progression, something that evolves and changes with time and situation.  Captain Walker begins as a military man that recognizes that violence and killing are sometimes a regrettable part of a mission.  But as his sanity wanes, Walker becomes more brutal in his mannerisms: his shouts to teammates become less professional and more savage, but more importantly, Walker himself becomes more violent.

Similar to Gears of War, Spec Ops allows players to execute downed opponents.  These begin with short, simple finishers: a clean bullet to the head, a swift punch to the throat, all instantly and, for all intents and purposes, professionally fatal.  But as the game progresses and the player/Walker commit more acts of escalating violence (see white phosphorus & helicopter assault scenes), the executions grow more callous, more brutal, and especially close to the end, downright savage.  Walker descends into slamming his gun numerous times into the opponent, shoving a barrel in their face as they struggle in vain to move it out of range, and otherwise brutalizing his enemies.  Here, the violence in executions and such is a reaction to violence in itself (violence begets more violence): the more violence that Walker (and the player) are exposed to, the more violent they become.  Violence in Spec Ops: The Line indicates the destruction of self and humanity in the face of such terrible violence itself.