By now, you’ve probably already seen it: the young heroine of the upcoming Forspoken game flies across empty fields and turns bad guys into pillars of ash, playing all the while. “So, let me get this straight…” she begins, adopting the ironic, mocking tone of so many contemporary pop culture heroes. Add in a few mentions of “crazy dragons” and “kill raised beasts”, and you have the makings of an instant internet meme.
It didn’t take long for people to start making jokes at the expense of the ad. Content creator and voice actor ProZD was one of the first to jump into action:
FunnyWes of Bloodborne PSX put together a fun version of FromSoftware’s beloved game:
And my personal favorite is this Tony Hawk-themed contribution from BobVids:
As a whole, it’s tempting to laugh at these goofy memes and move on with our lives. After all, the gaming community will find something new and embarrassing to laugh about in the coming days. And since the game is still in the oven, we have no idea if this announcement will reflect the final product. But to me, the woeful writing in this ad speaks to a bigger problem in game production, one that has been bubbling over the last five to 10 years. I’m referring to the abject “Jossification” that has taken over games at their root, especially in the triple A space.
If you play a lot of video games, you’ve probably noticed that the tone and writing of blockbusters’ characters have become remarkably similar in recent years. Or, to put it in a less charitable way, there’s an acute sense that too many games are settling for the generic rather than really differentiating themselves from the rest of the pack. The writing style of great video games settled on the sarcastic, joke-filled malaise first popularized by Joss Whedon on shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly.
For example, compare the reveal trailers for the upcoming Saints Row and the delayed Arkane-exclusive Redfall, each from about a year ago. Despite being very different in genre and overall presentation, the two games have an eerily similar tone, full of witty banter, non-sequiturs, visual gags and – of course – lots and lots of jokes. “Sleep tight,” our intrepid marksman says before punching holes in five vampires. “Ugh, that’s so unprofessional,” jokes one of our lovable losers upon learning that the gang they’re about to rob shot the arms dealer delivering the goods.
Now, there’s nothing wrong with injecting a little levity into your game. By their very nature, video games are often ridiculous, and timely humor can go a long way toward eliminating some of the more irritating aspects of a lengthy campaign. (And in fairness to these two games, they both display much better writing than that cursed Forspoken ad.) But lately, it seems like every game has exactly the same sense of humor: violent, but not graphical; goofy but not absurd; irreverent, but never transgressive. It’s unclear exactly what the objects of these jokes are, except perhaps the concept of someone taking something seriously.
The reaction to this kind of fawning writing style has been brewing in some quarters of the internet for a long time, especially in the filmmaking communities. The heavy criticism is perhaps best encapsulated by the recent memeification of the joke: “Well, that just happened!”
Despite the fact that this phrase doesn’t really seem to appear in any real Marvel movies, it has become shorthand for the clichéd, worn-out jokes that certain people attribute to the MCU. The line itself is The Avengers writer and director Joss Whedon’s essential ethos: No matter what just happened, we can make a silly reference joke at your expense and instantly erase all dramatic tension. (For the record, someone actually says, “He’s right behind me, isn’t he?” in Thor: Love and Thunder. That’s Taika Waititi for you.)
Whether you like this style of writing ultimately comes down to personal taste. Still, even if you love something, there is an upper limit to that love. Nobody wants to eat pizza for every meal. For me, the main problem with relying on Whedon’s style all the time is that he steals every betting situation. Fear, anger, hate, love – it flattens all the extremities of human emotion into a smug smile and an “up yours”. Famed horror writer Gretchen Felker-Martin recently described Whedon’s style as “rolling your eyes at the deepest visions of ecstasy and horror the universe has to offer”, and I think that’s a great way of putting it.
Perhaps the most interesting case study in the industry’s ongoing Jossification came in 2018, when Destiny 2 killed off the fan-favorite Exo Cayde-6 in the Forsaken expansion. Voiced by frequent Whedon contributor Nathan Fillion, Cayde-6 served as a walking personification of the game’s lighthearted writing style. Cayde’s death was taken by many fans as a move towards a more serious style in line with the game’s lore and deeper themes. At the launch of Destiny 2, Cayde-6’s sense of humor was front and center, leading to a more Jossified tone shift that not all fans appreciated. Thanks to this move, Destiny was able to explore more thoughtful territory in the trauma-focused Season of the Haunted. Regardless of how you look at it, it was certainly interesting to see a popular video game developer take the concept of idle play and put two holes in its head.
As a whole, I don’t think video game writers should strive to institute a new wave of dark and serious dialogue – or at least not all at once. However, I’d like to see more well-written humor-focused indie games like Disco Elysium, Hades, and even Cruelty Squad. Disco Elysium’s innovative concept of giving each of his character’s emotions a unique voice makes him stand out in space, along with his penchant for the surreal. Cruelty Squad portrays an absurd and ugly world, torn apart by capitalism that is so completely cynical it manages to provoke laughter. And while Hades has his fair share of jokes on Tumblr, each of his memorable characters has a voice and personality so strong they manage to hit the landing right.
Not every game needs to have award-winning writing, but a little diversity in tone, genre, and humor would go a long way. This is a big part of why The Witcher 3 is such a great RPG, and I hope some developers learn from its example. The dialogue in this Forspoken ad may have drawn the ire of online jokers, but there’s nothing exceptionally bad or objectionable about it. Whedon-style writing seemed innovative and fresh for its time, but time has passed and now it feels generic and banal without proper treatment.
Regardless of how developers feel about this style, it’s clear that there’s a pretty large part of the public prepared to scoff at its excesses every now and then. As such, if you write video games, you better sharpen your short sentences, because content creators are coming after you.
The real tragedy of this whole debacle is that the Forsaken footage in the ad actually looks quite appealing, at least by the standards of today’s big-budget open-world games: vibrant traversal options, satisfying combat. If only Square Enix had uploaded a muted version.
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