Deus Ex 1 and 3's Use of News Media

The Deus Ex series is not always subtle about its messages.

It is, in fact, at times almost amusingly blunt and inelegant. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I love Deus Ex 1, 2, and 3, and so far I’m also quite enjoying Deus Ex 4 (this rant is being published in the midst of my playthrough of DE4). I love what they want to say, and I even love how they say it. But to pretend that Deus Ex is always graceful about its wish to awaken the sheeple is to be delusional. Most of the time, Deus Ex delivers its messages about the quiet subjugation of humankind by the secret elites in such a forthright, nakedly earnest fashion with its exposition and dialogue that it can actually be kind of funny. I mean, I think DE1 and its protagonist JC Denton are actually by now most recognized for their memes!

Nonetheless, the Deus Ex series has its subtle moments, too. Blunt, this-is-how-the-conspiracy-works dialogue may be their favored method of communication, but the games also frequently employ more skillful methods in informing their audience of the ways in which society is coralled and controlled. You may remember, for example, that I really liked how Deus Ex 2 showed the way those in control can manufacture and use artificial rivalries as a way to distract and manipulate the common man through the Queequeg and Pequod coffee chains (even if the pace of DE2’s events completely sabotaged that revelation’s power). And 1 of these subtler methods that I think Deus Ex executes very well is the way in which DE1 and 3 show that modern news media can be used to cover up all manner of clandestine malicious activities in the world.

Now, Deus Ex makes the point that major journalism corporations shouldn’t be trusted implicitly in a few different ways, and some of these strategies are straightforward and blunt, as one might expect. With 1 method, there are multiple scenes and pieces of dialogue which have society’s shadowy masters outright speaking of how they’ll direct media outlets to report on an event or situation with the express intention to deceive the public and incite them to act (or decline to act) in a specific desired way. Another way: there are also times through the series in which you can interact with various NPC members of the public, and their dialogue will reflect natural reactions to and thought upon the content of the recent news programs. While perhaps not as hamfistedly forward as the traditional anime-tastic “mysterious dark villain council sit and discuss their sinister plans in as awkwardly vague a manner possible” approach, this is still also a pretty forthright, almost crude method of making Deus Ex’s point about news media as a tool of conspirators. Deus Ex 3’s approach of letting you read various communications in a major media corporation’s offices about what can and can’t be reported on, and their stated goals on what paths of thought they want the populace to be treading, is somewhere between Method 1 and 2 in terms of clumsy forthrightness. And in Deus Ex 4, they have sidequest content just start actively screaming in your face that corporate media can’t be trusted; 90s anti-drug PSAs have more subtlety than DE4 on this matter.

These are all fine storytelling approaches, honestly, but at the same time, they’re also as surface-level, hit-you-over-the-head-with-it as...well, as your typical vocal conspiracy theorist. The problem with that is, we’ve reached an age when for every 1 actual, earnest truther sincerely trying to keep the public safe and informed, there’s at least 10 charlatans all parroting each other’s fabricated and/or misleading “evidence” so they can prey on the gullible for profit or political gain. And these countless snake-oil salesmen of information all mimic the style of the few authentic conspiracy theorists, so they, too, are gracelessly forward with their never-ending “this is how they do it, people, this is how they control the narrative!” statements. So...when I hear and read these blunt attacks that the Deus Ex series makes on mainstream journalism, my reaction is mostly a disinterested, “Yeah, gotcha, heard it before, can’t trust the news, move on. What else have you got?”

But Deus Ex 1 and especially 3 do have another way of communicating to the player their message of major news media’s agenda and deception, and this last method is really effective and great. They use the game’s flow of events itself to make their point, and let the player do the math him/herself. There are several points in the course of DE1 and especially 3 between major story arcs at which JC and Adam have the opportunity to traverse the city streets, spending some time exploring, talking to the random citizenry, engaging in sidequests, and so on. And 1 of the things you can have Adam and JC do during this time is to listen in on or read breaking news bulletins.

And very frequently, at least 1 recent news story will be about an incident that JC or Adam was just involved in during his last mission. Only, the article will inevitably report the incident incorrectly, whether it be downplaying whatever disruptions and destruction Adam/JC caused, attributing the events to someone else’s doing (usually whatever illegal or terrorist group is the most useful scapegoat), claiming that something completely different occurred, or outright denying that anything of interest happened whatsoever. It’s a really great way of calling the audience’s attention to Deus Ex’s message about media cover-up, not just because this shows it in action without having to holler a dissertation about it into your ear as DE usually does otherwise, but also because this has the immediate attraction of being something the player him/herself was actually involved in. Since Deus Ex makes sure in every mission to give the player a lot of agency about how to approach JC and Adam’s goals, making the execution of that mission far more personally involving, the fact that the headlines are misrepresenting the events of DE1 and 3’s stories becomes more noteworthy to the player. The natural response will be for him or her to think something along the lines of, “Wait, I was just there, I did all that. That’s not how it happened at all!” They’re not just misrepresenting the game’s lore and events, they’re misrepresenting the player’s own work, and that calls a natural attention that the normal “this is what’s happening and it’s bad” approach doesn’t command so easily.

Additionally, while neither Deus Ex 1 nor 3 leaves the purposes and dangers of journalism cover-ups ambiguous in their narratives, these moments of the player’s hearing about how his or her own actions are being hidden tend to come at the player’s own pace of exploration. Rather than a part of the game’s flow with a set, specific time of revelation, these reports are generally something the player naturally discovers him/herself while playing, which makes the process of Deus Ex communicating this idea of news media distrust feel more like the player having put it together him/herself, which is a more enjoyable and compelling way to receive the lesson than just having Deus Ex 3’s Alex Jones equivalent* hollering the message directly at you whenever you pass by a radio. Yes, you find them quite easily and at the times that the game’s narrative would like you to, so there’s perhaps not that much difference in the long run, but it at least feels appealingly like a reward for the player’s exploration and puzzle-solving diligence to find, recognize, and realize the falsehood of these headlines, and that makes the message more compelling.

It all comes back to the power of showing over telling, really. Now, I’m a proponent of doing both effectively, and Deus Ex as a whole is thankfully smart enough to both show and tell its messages in a variety of ways. But there’s no denying that showing almost always has the upper hand as a narrative device than just telling, and the way that Deus Ex handles its theme of news media manipulation is a fine example of this: the many instances of the games’ characters and communiques telling you about it are perfectly functional, but what really drives the point home is the headlines and broadcasts that show you the process in action. Deus Ex 1 and particularly 3 do a damn fine job with this, so I say kudos to their writers for their work.















* There’s an endorsement that didn’t age well. Although DE3’s only got itself to blame for backing that horse; it wasn’t really much more difficult to suss out that Jones was a profiteering blowhard joke back in 2011 than it is today.

Fallout 4's Fourville Mod is Pretty Darned Great

Generally, when I make a rant listing the best mods for a game, I follow 3 main guidelines for what does and doesn’t get mentioned: A, it’s a mod that enhances the storytelling, lore, or overall core aesthetic experience of the game, (enhancing the post-apocalyptic exploration and ambient storytelling of Fallout, restoring planned content that didn’t have a chance to get implemented due to deadlines in a game like Knights of the Old Republic 2, correcting a glitch that prevented a quest from starting in a game like Planescape: Torment, etc); B, it’s very good (duh), and C, it’s authentic to the body and soul of the game. This last prerequisite is why I don’t mention many quest-based and campaign mods, because generally, there’s something about them that tends to make them stand out from the game proper. Sometimes it’s a contradiction to the actual canon of the game or series, sometimes there are elements in them that conflict with the setting or aesthetic of the source material, and sometimes the style and/or quality of writing for the mod is noticeably distant from that of the actual game. You can see this when looking at my list of Fallout 3’s best mods--though I give great praise to user content that captures the game’s post apocalyptic aesthetic by adding more elements of exploration, or restores some of the intended radio material and adds appropriate Fallout-based content to it, I don’t recommend a single story-based mod in that rant, in spite of there being dozens and dozens of such fan adventures available for the game. The simple fact is, as a general rule, such mods come across, at most, as fanfiction, rather than as true aspects of the game’s experience.

But there is the occasional exception.*

Fourville, a Fallout 4 mod created by one Seddo4494, is an exception of such quality that I can’t just quietly edit my original Fallout 4 mod rant to include it, as I have for a couple other mods that were released after that rant had been published. No, this one needs the full due of its own rant. Because Fourville is awesome. This mod, created by a single person, is a better, more genuine, and more substantial slice of the Fallout experience than anything the hundreds of employees of Bethesda have labored upon during the last 4 years.** It’s honestly more like a new, real DLC for Fallout 4 than it is just a mod.

First of all, Fourville is written really well. The dialogue is smooth, natural, and at the same level as the “real” game, as is the text of the holotapes, notes, and logs to be found. Which is very unusual, to be frank; user-created adventures can be decent, but there’s almost always a disconnect between the writing of a fan and the writing of the game proper. In most cases, the former is noticeably worse overall--and that’s not a mark of shame, or anything like that. A labor by 1 person for no certain reward beyond a love of the game is a different animal from the product of a team of professionals paid to do their job competently. And even if a mod’s writing is around the same level of quality as Fallout 4 as a whole, it still usually stands out for just aesthetic reasons. We all have our own narrative voice, after all, and the manner in which a mod’s author communicates, from phrases to choice in vocabulary to sentence structure, will typically differ enough from the writers of Fallout 4 that it does feel different.

But the narrative voice in Fourville manages to be so close in both quality and style to that of Fallout 4’s that it felt indistinguishable to me. Even the way dialogue and monologue is put together, such as the tone and pauses in some of the holotapes, feels authentic to the game.

And while still on the subject of the writing, the overall story and characters of Fourville are solid, too. The plot of this mod is simple, but enjoyable. Between its sequence of main and side quests, it flows naturally, and the story and settings are composed cleverly enough that even as you’re immersed in the mod’s surface-level adventures, there are bits and pieces here and there, such as certain dualities in the cast and the state of Mr. Quinn’s room, that subtly maintain a feeling of unease in you, as something is clearly out of place, and keeps you guessing about what may or may not be going on at a deeper level. It’s quite elegantly done, really, and the ultimate twist at the end of the mod is layered, interesting, and creative enough that even if you’ve guessed part of it, there’ll still be aspects of it that will pleasingly interest you and give you retrospective appreciation for the mod’s course.

Beyond the main quest, the rest of the adventure’s components are crafted well, too. While plenty of its quests are pretty basic bread-and-butter bits of “fetch this,” “kill these guys,” “go back and forth between these people” scenarios, there’s also a lot of mini-stories in Fourville that are dynamic and engaging, and work well with the characters and Fallout setting to keep your interest--I found the sidequests involving the Wattz factory and the doctor’s brother fun and even a little suspenseful at times. The mod has a purpose to communicate, and food for thought, and I really like that. As a matter of course, there are also some relatively difficult moral choices to be made in Fourville, too, as any good Fallout venture should have, and while I do tend to care perhaps a little too much about my actions in video games, I enjoy the fact that a couple of the choices I had to make in Fourville are ones that my conscience is still grappling a little with. In fact, I actually restarted the mod and played it a second time just because earlier into it, I backed a character who I came to believe is mistaken. If I care enough about the potential consequences of a decision that I go back and redo the whole adventure as a result, that’s a point in favor of that mod’s writing quality.

The characters are also pretty decent. Most are stock, meat-and-potatoes personalities that get the job done and nothing more, I suppose, but that’s true of a Fallout game as a whole, so it’s hard to see that as a flaw, and there are some individuals whose personalities, character history, and/or depth stand out for their high quality, such as old Mr. McNally, Roscoe, and Betty. Additionally, some of the after-the-fact characters whose stories are told through holotapes are really great--the story of the Armstrong family is quite compelling, the FEV scientist is a skillfully-created detestable asshole, and to be frank, I think the series of records left by a student and his teacher is among the best holotape stories that the entire Fallout series has to offer! And I should point out that some of my favorite moments of Fallout, period, have been journals left behind by characters in Fallout 3, New Vegas, and 4.

So in terms of writing quality, Fourville is top-notch from front to back. But I think it’s also important to recognize that it’s exactly as well-constructed on the material level, too. Fourville adds a decent handful of locations to the game, all involved in its quests, and they’re constructed very well--more than functional, they’re interesting to navigate, providing new playgrounds within the Fallout setting to explore and appreciate. Plenty of locations are straightforward and basic, but settings like the vertically-dominated apartment building, the dynamic flooded Wattz factory, and the cave of Mr. Abominable have more singular personality to better draw you into your ventures through them. The locations of Fourville are competently coded and organized, with few mesh conflicts, and with clutter items and containers arranged in quantity and placement that feels rewarding to careful exploration, but true to the standard that Fallout normally sets.

Another technical detail where Fourville shines: the voice acting. I have to emphatically applaud the actors who voiced Fourville’s large cast. It’s rare for a quest mod to actually have voice work for its characters, and on the occasions that you do find a fan adventure that has spoken lines, they’re pretty much always...well, it’s clear that the lines are being read by amateurs at the craft. And I don’t fault them that, because it’s a lot of work to add voiced dialogue, and the fans making these mods (and what talents they can reasonably gather for their projects) aren’t trained, paid professionals in quality recording booths. Still, there’s no denying that the quality or lack of spoken dialogue in quest mods is 1 of the biggest ways in which immersion is broken.

But Fourville’s voice acting? Clean, exact, varied, competent, and well-directed. The voice actors are on-point, they know how to use emphasis, emotion, and accent to build their characters, and they’re coming through loud and clear. If anything gives away Fourville’s status as a mod rather than a legitimate part of Fallout 4, it sure as hell ain’t the vocal work. I’m seriously impressed on this point.

And related to that, I also have to give special kudos to Fourville for its use of Nora/Nate’s dialogue, too. Another typical issue with quest mods is that Nora/Nate’s lines are silent, since obviously Courtenay Taylor and Brian T. Delaney are gonna be difficult to get hold of to record new lines for a fan project. Fourville gets around this, however, by having the Sole Survivor’s responses to dialogue and quest choices always use lines recorded for the main game, so as a result, Nora/Nate still seems to be an active part of Fourville’s events and community as she/he interacts vocally with others. Now, in fairness, this isn’t the only mod out there that’s done this, but Fourville has certainly incorporated Nora/Nate’s lines into its exchanges more naturally and intuitively than anything I’ve seen prior.

One more point of technical prowess in Fourville’s favor: this is not a small adventure. The size of this mod, with its quests, locations, characters, and alterations to existing locales, is that of an outright Fallout DLC--perhaps not as big as, say, Far Harbor or Point Lookout, but easily an adventure of greater size than Lonesome Roads or Operation: Anchorage. And definitely bigger than the majority of DLCs that Fallout 4 ended up with. To maintain the level of professional quality that Fourville has for a creation of such scope is very impressive.

Fourville’s also considerate with how it’s been set up. There’s a little content within it that will connect with the Far Harbor and Vault 88 DLCs, but you can still play this mod even if you haven’t purchased those add-ons. The quest related to Far Harbor is a very small and quick side mission which won’t even come up if Far Harbor isn’t installed, and the quest involving Vault 88 (in which you go on a pilgrimage of sorts to the Vaults of the Commonwealth) has been designed so that you can complete it with only the vanilla game’s available Vaults.

Beyond the strength of the writing and the careful architecture of its components, Fourville is, perhaps most importantly, a genuine Fallout experience on every major and minor level. The adoration its creator has for the series as a whole is proudly evident. Its main story is tied inseparably to the series’s major points of lore and approach to storytelling. It also incorporates elements and references to each of the previous major Fallout titles in a pleasant fanservice capacity, but not so strongly as to seem heavy-handed. It even references Fallout 76 with a joke at 1 point about holotapes being all the rage down in West Virginia--light enough to stay classy by not expressly criticizing Fallout 76 (although you know I’d have no problem with going all-in on the Bethesda-hate), but still scathing in its light touch through the effective implication that there’s no substance to the game to make use of beyond a quick wisecrack.

Beyond the tangible, Fourville shows a love for Fallout in its narrative methods and the little details. Fourville’s locations have solid ambient storytelling with their skeleton and object placement, which has been a detail of style for the Fallout series from its earliest days that works into its charm, morbidity, humor, and postmortem storytelling. Likewise, the number of and attention paid to the holotapes is a big plus. The creator of Fourville also clearly understands how big of a part exploration and hunting for objects of interest is to a post apocalyptic setting, because Fourville adds a new set of Bobbleheads to be found through its course that each confer little bonuses like (but not the same as) the original Bobbleheads in the game, giving you incentive to search every nook and cranny of each place you visit--and at least 1 of them is hidden quite cleverly, in a spot difficult to return to (I’ll give you a hint: sewer system), so they’re rewarding to find beyond just the, well, reward. The names of quests are often good references to bits of American culture, which is another fun little Fallout signature.

Fourville also takes great pride in connecting itself to Fallout 4, standing as a representation of the game it’s attached to in ways both great and small, some of which really brought a smile to my face, as someone who sincerely loved Fallout 4. While Fourville primarily uses its own locations for the majority of its quests, it nonetheless makes sure to incorporate many of the original locales of the Commonwealth into its course, and even some of Fallout 4’s own characters, which is a nice touch, because that cements one’s feelings of Fourville as a part of Fallout 4, not just a separate entity artificially grafted onto it.*** As you’d expect, synths and the conflict of the Institute are involved to a degree (although not in a major way--which is good for Fourville, as it’s allowed to focus on its own story and ideas).

As much as the bigger stuff, though, it’s also through the tiny details that Fourville connects itself to Fallout 4. Though Fourville doesn’t incorporate much of the settlement building system into its content, it does involve it a little in 1 quest, and it provides a separate Bobbhead stand for the Vault 4 Bobbleheads it adds, so you can display them just as you can for the main game’s set. Another quest actually incorporates the tokens you get for turning in Overdue Books, which is a gameplay quirk that Fallout 4 made surprisingly little use of, considering the trouble it must have been to set up, so it’s neat that Fourville remembered it, almost like fixing a slight oversight of the main game. As mentioned before, some of the game’s DLCs come into play, just enough to again build the feeling of Fourville’s being a part of Fallout 4’s whole, without (as mentioned above) closing the door on any player who hasn’t bought them. And Fourville even gives an opportunity during 1 quest to use some Silver Shroud lines! Who doesn’t love Silver Shroud content?

Finally, Fourville even extends the life of Fallout 4 beyond its own boundaries. 1 of its features is to add a big storage building in Boston, in which are dozens of locked safes filled with the property of the residents of the area’s Vaults. You can’t lockpick these safes, but passwords for these safes will, on rare occasions, be found on the corpses of feral ghoul enemies you’ve defeated. The contents of each safe are often interesting and fun, rewarding the player with item collections that tell you a little about their original owner, and even some rare or unique items, such as a variant of Maxim’s coat or 1 of the Fourville Bobbleheads. It’s fun to bring a password to this storage building and see what prize you’ve found, and since the drop rate of said passwords is way too low for you to get even half of them during the course of your Fourville experience, the mod has now given you a fun extra to look forward to when you play through other mods or revisit Fallout 4’s locations with feral ghouls in them. It’s a way more effective playing incentive than the usual find-and-return quest items like Viable Blood Samples and Technical Documents, because whereas those are just turned in for some caps that haven’t been relevant to you for the last 200 hours of your gameplay, the mystery of what you’re getting keeps you invested in turning the passwords in.**** Not to mention, playing an ethical character in Fallout 4 inevitably means cutting off the ability to turn in certain bounty items (the 2 types I listed a moment ago certainly do me no good), while the Vault resident passwords are something to look forward to finding regardless of past decisions, since they can always be turned in.

Now, of course, nothing is perfect, and Fourville does have a few problems. For starters, the NPCs that Fourville adds all seem to be at Level 1, instead of scaling at all to the player, or even being as capable as most NPCs in the regular game, which...I dunno, it’s not important, I guess, but it’s weird when so many of the individuals you may have to dispose of in the course of the mod’s events just fall apart immediately.

More significantly, there are a few spots in which Fourville can experience a bug or 2, and I can say from experience that at least 1 of them can make progressing a certain sidequest impossible without console commands. That’s always an irritation, no doubt about it. Still, I have to go easy on Fourville here, because for a mod as big and possessing as many moving parts as this, the fact that it works just fine 95% of the time is pretty impressive. I mean, it’s not like Fallout 3, 4, and New Vegas are technically perfect, either; even post-launch patches left all of them in a buggier state than Fourville’s in. Although far less immediately apparent, you could even say the same for Fallout 2; Killap’s Fallout 2 Restoration Project fixed over 1,000 bugs left in the game’s final version. So Fourville's slight technical imperfection really isn't that big a deal, in my opinion.

I also think that the companion that Fourville adds, Logan, falls a little flat. He’s fine enough, as a personality, and the mod puts in the effort to give him a character arc and quest, like the rest of the game’s companions get, and good on Seddo4494 for that. And I greatly respect the work that went into giving Logan a ton of lines that react to the environment, immediate circumstances, and even the game’s story events--from what I understand, Logan will have things to say about many of the main game’s quests and sidequests, which must have required a tremendous amount of work to make happen. As much as I respect that, though, as a character, Logan just doesn’t feel all that interesting to me...I didn’t get invested in his story even as much as I did for some of the regular characters of Fourville, and one’s instinct is to expect more from a party member than an NPC. He’s not bad by any means, but I’d wander the wastelands with most of the vanilla party members of Fallout 4 before I did Logan.

Lastly, the Fourville quest involving the video game doesn’t really sit well with me. I don’t dislike it, exactly, but part of its course is to make a light critique on the current state of the gaming industry. A critique I wholeheartedly agree with, make no mistake! But at the same time, the simple, barely-born state of video games in the Fallout universe doesn’t really accommodate the commentary that Fourville’s making about them. It feels like the kind of lore conflict you see with most other quest mods, where the user’s pulling the Fallout setting a little too far to make it do what they want. And this would normally be a bit of a dealbreaker for me; in most cases, breaking immersion even once like this is what keeps me from actively promoting a mod on this blog. However, considering how great everything else about Fourville is...well, I can let 1 thing like this go, I reckon. Even a petty, nitpicky hardass like me can be reasonable when the payoff overall is so superb.

Fourville by Seddo4494 is a truly excellent mod, a work of high quality in both writing and construction. And it’s a terrific, immersive Fallout experience that appeals to the deepest of fan love for the series. Already a valuable commodity under normal circumstances, the chance to enjoy a rich, authentic Fallout experience is especially priceless in current times, when those who hold the franchise’s license have completely lost their fucking minds (or at least their understanding of basic ethics). I’m adding it to my list of the best Fallout 4 mods, but I really wanted to take the time to give it a full rant of its own, because it’s more than worthy of such. If you love Fallout, check out Fourville!












* Shocking excellence aside, the Calfree Trilogy perfectly captures the Shadowrun experience that Harebrained Schemes created with their campaigns, and uses the series’s own official lore as the foundation to its stories. If anything, the Calfree Trilogy stays even more faithfully adherent to Shadowrun canon than the official games themselves do.

Meanwhile, the Mass Effect Happy Ending Mod may not be perfect (although it IS very, very good), but it certainly represents a far more intelligent, consistent representation of the heart and soul of Mass Effect than the toxic, idiotic ending with which Bioware sullied Mass Effect 3. Rather than a deviation from authentic core of the series, MEHEM is the only recourse for anyone who cares to end the Mass Effect trilogy in a fashion true to itself.


** Not that this says a whole lot. The act of consuming an entire can of seasoned breadcrumbs while listening to a bardcore remix of Pokemon music in the bathtub is a more authentic Fallout experience than Fallout 76. In fact, I’d wager that the only thing that could possibly be less Fallout than the current state of Fallout 76 is whatever alteration or addition Bethesda happens to next make to it.


*** In fact, in that regard, I’d actually say Fourville feels more authentically intertwined with Fallout 4 than some of the game’s actual downloadable content. Automatron, Vault 88, and Nuka-World could’ve been added to any Fallout game, really.


**** If this were an EA game (not that Bethesda is any better than them, these days), I’m sure there’d be a joke here about this being what actual surprise mechanics look like.

General RPG Lists: Best Silent Protagonists

To reveal, here and now, that I generally don’t like silent protagonists is probably not going to blow your mind, for a couple of reasons. The first, of course, is that I’ve already mentioned my disdain for the concept in the past, multiple times. The second, though, is that I can’t really believe that there’s anyone out there who has so strongly positive a feeling about non-verbal protagonists that they’d be scandalized at the idea of another person disliking them. Oh, sure, there are many gamers who don’t mind the idea of pouring 40 - 100 hours into a title without once getting any indication that the protagonist around whom the narrative world turns is in the slightest way invested in what’s going on around him,* and even some who buy enough into the bullshit rationale that a silent protagonist is easier to put oneself into the shoes of as an audience that they actually do have a mild appreciation for the concept. But is there anyone out there, really, who strongly enjoys and appreciates silent protagonists, who is an actual, enthusiastic fan of them? I dare to presume there is not.

But if there is, then this is the rant for you, baby! Because today we’re gonna look at the 5 best silent protagonists in RPG history (as far as I know it), and appreciate these rarities whose reticence actually benefited their game!



5. Sasha (Severed)

As I mentioned back in my rant about why Fire Emblem 16's Byleth is terrible as a silent protagonist, there are a few rare occasions in which a hero’s silence can accentuate a game’s atmosphere and mood. I specifically noted the Metroid series’s Samus and Undertale’s Frisk** at the time as examples. Well, Sasha is another specimen of this phenomenon: much like Samus, the fact that Sasha never utters a word as she embarks on her unhappy quest effectively accentuates the darkness of the game as a whole, the pain of what she has lost, the discomforting solitude of a desperate stranger in a hostile world, and the loneliness Sasha feels as a girl used to the constant, supporting presence of her family now violently forced to survive on her own. And it’s worth adding that though she never expresses herself verbally, and we rarely even get to actually see her (since the game’s point of view is first person), Sasha’s emotional personality is shown quite well in Severed, through the subtle context of the game’s events and world, and the few visual glimpses we do get of her in its course. So with Sasha, we get a protagonist whose character still manages to come through adequately without words, and more importantly, a heroine whose muteness actually works to her game’s benefit, working with and emphasizing the aesthetic of Severed in an effective way.


4. Mario (Mario Series)

It kills me to credit silly, cheery, kid-friendly Mario more highly than Sasha. But honestly, I just can’t see a way around it: as a hero who says nothing, Mario does what he does pretty perfectly.

See, it’s like this: Sasha’s taciturnity reflects and benefits much of how Severed wants to present itself, and that’s a definite advantage. And that advantage isn’t outweighed by the inherent downside of a silent protagonist (a severe detriment to the character’s ability to express themselves and undergo character development), because Severed mitigates that downside very skillfully. But that benefit to Severed isn’t extreme or anything; it’s a good thing, not a great thing. Mario, on the other hand, doesn’t really benefit RPGs like Paper Mario 2 or the Mario and Luigi series with his penchant for being non-verbal...but that lack of speaking also, amazingly, completely avoids being an obstacle for his character’s expression, and actually becomes a signature personality trait.

Nintendo (and Squaresoft, in the old SNES Super Mario RPG) manages the near-impossible with Mario, and transforms the fact that he never really engages in any dialogue in his RPGs or most of his other games into a strength, rather than a weakness. He’s visually expressive to such a great degree that whether he’s volunteering to help out in Paper Mario 2, babbling incomprehensibly in sort-of-but-not-really Italian gibberish in the Mario and Luigi series, or showing his readiness to start kicking ass and taking names by walking forward while swinging his fists in Super Mario RPG, there’s never any question in an RPG starring this lovable little guy of what he’s feeling about what’s going on, nor of what he’s trying to tell others. Mario has a definite, demonstrable personality in each game he’s a part of, and always having to communicate his thoughts through expressions, gestures, and motion never hinders him the way it does almost all other silent protagonists. And his games don’t shy away from it, either; they frequently go all in on his participation as the game’s hero during discussions.

Super Mario RPG actually had Mario be the one who gives recap exposition to other characters who need to be brought up to date on current events. RECAP EXPOSITION! That’s arguably the most straightforwardly verbal form of storytelling there is! But by having Mario do energetic pantomimes of what had gone on, and some inexplicable but fun shape-shifting to show the other characters that had been involved, Squaresoft not only made the guy who never says anything a perfect vehicle for describing his adventures thus far, but also made the player actually look forward to the occasions in Super Mario RPG where a recap was needed. Name me a single other game, show, movie, whatever in which you, as an audience, have looked forward to the next moment you’d see a character or narrator give a rundown on previous events that you’d already seen. I mean, by Desna, imagine if Xenogears had had Mario instead of that fucking chair--it might have actually been an enjoyable game!

So anyway, yeah, that’s why Mario trumps Sasha. Sasha is a benefit to her game, and full credit to her for it, but her game also doesn’t require very much of her as an interactive individual. Mario, on the other hand, has to pull his narrative weight as a member of a highly expressive cast in every RPG he’s a part of, and he turns his inability to articulate a full damn sentence into a strength rather than a weakness, a lovable quirk of his character rather than a lack of one.


3. Pogo (Live-A-Live)

Pogo (as well as the rest of this list’s occupants) is 1 of the great wonders of the RPG world: a silent protagonist who actually has a reason not to say anything. Much though I may like Mario, there’s no actual in-universe cause for him to only speak Charlie Chaplin, and while one certainly understands why Sasha wouldn’t be especially chatty, there is, at the same time, no particular reason why she wouldn’t at least occasionally have a thought to share verbally. Pogo, on the other hand, has every reason in the world not to have a single line of dialogue, because he’s a caveman living before the invention of a spoken language! EVERYONE in his chapter of Live-A-Live says nothing.

Of course, even if it’s a strong point in a character’s favor, just having a reason not to be speaking isn’t enough on its own to qualify for this list. If it were, that terrible failure Byleth would be here, heaven forbid. But much like Mario, and some other decent silent protagonists who didn’t quite make the cut for this rant, Pogo is an expressive, active part of his story even without the ability to speak to others, employing actions and expressions to get across what his thoughts and reactions are. And it works very well, not only by its own virtue, but also with the aiding factor that the entire story of Pogo’s chapter in Live-A-Live is being narrated, as such, by everyone else involved. Where other decent silent protagonists still stand out as strange for being surrounded by normal characters who actually speak their pieces, Pogo fits in naturally when everyone else is equally non-verbose. Also, I pay the folks who made the prehistoric chapter of Live-A-Live extra due, because for them to be able to so effectively tell Pogo’s story with such tiny sprites to work with (even by SNES standards, LAL’s character models are miniscule) shows a heck of a lot of talent. I really wish a character like Pogo, with both cause for no dialogue and a personality that shines through well enough without it, could be the standard for silent protagonists.


2. Red (Transistor)

Now see, this is how you do it! Red’s inability to speak is a consequence of the major event that sets the entirety of Transistor’s events into motion, and a significant component in the player’s understanding of her situation--since she was an incredibly poignant singer famous for her voice prior to the game’s opening, the fact that she’s lost the defining trait of who she is and who she was to others helps to emphasize the tragedy she’s suffering. Her silence is even better a symbol of her loss, and a symbol of what the antagonists have been destroying in their attempts to save, when the game contrasts it against her haunting, soulful music, which we get to hear as part of Transistor’s soundtrack. Finally, Red’s being a mute allows us the pleasure of the unbroken narration of her companion and lover, Subject Not Found, whose one-sided conversation with Red as the game goes on is well-written as to personalize both of them better than most other RPGs can manage to develop characters who can both speak to each other. It also allows for an interesting physical representation of Red and Subject Not Found completing one another, as she has lost her voice and he has lost all but his voice, and of how much they need one another for that fact, for Red’s voice was the most important part of her, and as the man who protected her, physicality was similarly Subject Not Found’s most important quality (narratively, at least).

Ultimately, Red’s inability to speak isn’t just a quirk, or solely an element of the game’s aesthetic. It’s a moving part of her character and her story, and Transistor would be far less artful and powerful otherwise.


1. Amaterasu (Okami)

Red’s silence may be the most artistic and meaningful, I must admit, but...awww, heck, how can you possibly outdo Amaterasu as a silent protagonist?

One of the many, many ways in which Okami soundly beats The Legend of Zelda at its own game is by also having a notably silent protagonist...but one who, in fact, SHOULD be unable to talk, and whose silence is actually noticed by other characters, rather than inexplicably ignored. While Link’s perpetual inability to communicate with anything beyond grunts and surprised or determined expressions has never been given explanation nor remarked upon by a world in which all other members of his race can communicate verbally, Amaterasu’s a wolf, and is thus reasonably restricted to barks, howls, whines, and the like. Not only that, but the fact that she can’t speak for herself to human beings actually, wonder of wonders, affects her interactions with people and the way the events of the game play out. This is a protagonist whose silence is actually real, not just for us, but for her, as well, as a part of her world.

Because Ammy is a wolf, the normal, almost-impossible-to-avoid downsides of lessened opportunities for characterization are largely minimized--your expectations for development of an animal character are naturally different from your expectations from a human (or appropriate equivalent) character. But even if they weren’t, the creators of Okami also went out of their way to create a strong, demonstrable personality for this furry sun goddess that smartly uses her voiceless actions and expressions as a springboard for a cleverly comical personality--Amaterasu is about as amusingly irreverent a deity as you can possibly find outside of the Kid Icarus franchise. And it even works within the confines of her being a canine; Ammy shows her lack of interest in serious dialogue and over-long exposition by laying down to nap right in the middle of other characters’ speeches in a very doglike fashion, for example. Additionally, Ammy’s creators put in the time and effort with her reactions and conduct the way few silent protagonists’ creators do--even when, for example, the writers at Nintendo try to make Link seem slightly more human than a piece of furniture, they only do so by having him give facial and/or grunt reactions to immediately, forcibly engaging events, major happenings that surprise or dismay him, or call for him to look determined to succeed, stuff like that. Amaterasu, on the other hand, acts and reacts with enough frequency and to enough variety of stimuli that she feels authentically integrated into the story she stars in, a character within rather than just a mere tool of the narrative.

Also, gotta say, Amaterasu gets bonus points from me for the fact that she’s a good example of what I’ve wanted for ages from an animal character. Granted, she is far more sapient than an outright animal usually is, so I guess maybe she's not quite the definition of what I want more of in animal characters, but I think it's safe to say that intelligence or no, her general behavior, mannerisms, and personality are very authentic to a wolf or dog, far more than to a person.  So she’s not just the best example of 1 rare, tricky character trope, but also a great representation of another..

Lastly, I’d also like to point out that Amaterasu is a great match to her boisterous, loud companion Issun. Again, we see how much better Okami is at The Legend of Zelda’s tropes than TLoZ ever has been. TLoZ frequently attempts to cheat its way around the shortcomings of forcing Link to be silent by pairing him up with a talkative companion who speaks to him and at least some other characters frequently about what’s happening--Navi, Fi, ghost Zelda, that stupid boat, etc. This way Nintendo doesn’t have to find a creative solution around the impediment they’ve pointlessly imposed upon themselves, by instead having a voice that’s more or less always there in the game with the protagonist without actually being his. Well, Issun is that character to Amaterasu, and true, he is, ultimately, as much of a narrative cheat as any of Link’s companions. But unlike most of LInk’s companions, Issun is more than just a voice there for the writers’ convenience--he and Amaterasu actually interact with each other, and have a bond that you can see change and grow over the adventure’s course. While the most you can get out of Link most of the time is a stoic acknowledgement that Tatl or 1 of the other companion entities exists, Amaterasu pays attention to Issun, and reacts to him, such as stepping on him when he’s annoying her. He’s not just a convenient mouthpiece for her, he’s actually a character she acknowledges, reacts to, and works alongside over the course of the adventure. I’ll grant you that Link did once manage something similar with 1 companion, Midna, but there still was far less of a connection there than Amaterasu has with Issun, and it was still far more 1-sided (Midna did 90% of the work in selling the player that she and Link had any sort of dynamic connection).

For that matter, it’s more than just bad examples of silent protagonists that Amaterasu and Issun trump in this case--as great and even beautiful as the connection between Red and Subject Not Found is, it isn’t very interactive. Really, Subject Not Found’s lines are closer to monologue than dialogue; he has no greater influence on or interaction with Red during Transistor than the narrator did with The Kid in Supergiant’s previous game, Bastion, and that was a case of the narrator describing what The Kid was doing as past events. Amaterasu and Issun, on the other hand, are partners in real time.

So yeah, basically, Okami is a case where a protagonist is actually supposed to be silent. It uses Amaterasu’s silence as an opportunity to create a well-defined personality that, while pleasingly unexpected, fits her like a glove, rather than as an excuse not to develop her at all, as most writers would and do. And it more than makes up for its cheat with companion Issun by making sure that Amaterasu is an involved, important part of that dynamic. Amaterasu is the best silent protagonist, paws-down, and I desperately wish RPG developers would take cues from her on how you make an unforgettable character in spite of, nay, because of her silence.


Honorable Mention: New Kid (South Park: The Fractured But Whole, and South Park: The Stick of Truth)

The New Kid’s almost completely unbroken silence doesn’t make her or him a better character, it gets in the way of her or his ability to develop or form dynamic relationships with the rest of the cast, and it’s a noticeable impediment to several key plot points, such as the New Kid’s supposed ability to connect to and become besties with anyone she or he meets. The New Kid is, basically, a great example of what makes a narrative problem, rather than anything beneficial to a game.

And that’s all great, because as much as they are about poking fun at fantasy stories and comic book tropes, these South Park games are also all about mocking the conventions of RPGs. So yes, all the standard, immersion-breaking problems are present with the New Kid, but they’re there intentionally, so that the games can frequently make jokes about it, like having characters deliver exposition to the New Kid and then stand expectantly, waiting for a verbal answer that’s just never coming, before awkwardly moving forward. It’s often enough that there’s enough humor to make the silent act worth maintaining for the whole game, yet not frequent enough that the joke ever became stale to me. And frankly, even if it had, the final payoff to the New Kid’s reticence at the end of The Stick of Truth still would have made it worth it.

And I suppose it’s only fair to mention that even in being a parody of the silent protagonist trope, the New Kid is still a better specimen than most silent protagonists, because The Fractured But Whole actually DOES provide a few bits of characterization for her or him in the scenes we get of her or his unhappy home life, which even provides a tiny bit of explanation, perhaps, for the New Kid’s unwillingness to talk. Yeah, South Park is good enough that even their damn joke characters are a bit better than the standard.

I’m a sucker for in-genre jokes about RPGs, and The New Kid’s a great example of someone actually recognizing the silliness of silent protagonists, and making an amusing critique of it.

















* “Why “him” only, you sexist pig, women can be protagonists too!” you fire vehemently in my direction, perhaps. Well, because it’s really quite rare that a dedicated female protagonist (as in, a protagonist who is only a woman, not one which the player can choose to play as a man or a woman) is also a silent one. I don’t know whether I was right the first time I noted this years back in joking that there might some unconscious link to the old stereotype of women being chatty, or if perhaps the idea of a woman in a leading role is still relatively new enough that a writer is only going to think to do it when he/she gives enough of a shit about his/her game to also want that leading role to have actual dialogue, or if it’s another reason altogether, but the fact is that a silent female protagonist is just a very uncommon thing to find. And, more amusingly, it relates to my original sentence above even less for the fact that the only 3 invariably-female silent protagonists I can immediately think of are actually on this list as silent protagonists who don’t suck.

...Which is odd, thinking about it. What are the odds that of all silent protagonists, 3 of the 5 best ones would also happen to be all 3 of the definitively female ones (of which I’m aware, at least)? I don’t think it’s from any bias on my part; my reasons for their placement are pretty solid, I think. Hm. Peculiar.


** Frisk was a strong contender for this list, but Sasha just barely edges Frisk out for the fact that Frisk’s silence is a powerful tool for creating the terrifying and disturbing ambiance of a Genocide playthrough of Undertale, but it doesn’t really do all that much for the Pacifist path. I mean, it’s not useless or anything; there’re certain benefits it has in connection to Frisk’s personal history, but its benefits are mild at best. Since Sasha’s silence benefits her game in its entirety, rather than just 1 of 2 main paths (and the lesser of them, for that matter), she makes the list.