"It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead."
The above quote from The Terminator is spoken by the character of Kyle Reese to Sarah
Connor. It has in a way become iconic, the perfect descriptor for the
terminator, the titular killing machine. In Rectifier,
this quote describes not your enemy, but you.
The game is a first-person assassin simulator.
You engage in a series of missions that you are sent on by your employer, a
powerful megacorporation that can afford such a brutal instrument as yourself.
You have targets, and in this way the game resembles the Hitman games. You are put into an open but confined area, you are
given a target or targets, and how you accomplish your mission is left up to
you, with a variety (yet finite amount) of tools at your disposal. The game
differs from a more assassin-style game as Hitman
in its emphasis, being much more about action, the direct use of force, rather
than stealth. Sometimes making a statement requires a public display of
aggression. Therefore the game has explosive, violent, debris-shattering,
limb-rending, blood-splattering gun mechanics. Think F.E.A.R. but more refined,
more finely honed. The experience of shooting is visceral and bone-shaking. It
is the firefights from Heat, the
lobby scene from The Matrix, the
Guggenheim shootout from The
International, distilled into videogame form.
Because you are a cyborg you feel like a cyborg.
You feel like the terminator, you feel like Robocop. It takes cues from games
like Syndicate which delivers on such
a premise but amps up the intensity, more appropriately bends the game systems
to serve this goal.
The game is cyberpunk, except you work for a
megacorporation, rather than against them. In this way you are not unlike
Deckard in Blade Runner, only you are
far more effective in your job.
Despite being a cyborg, you are not a ninja, nor
are you invincible. The player moves deliberately, saddled with heavy
modifications and equipment. This feeds into the feeling of being an
unstoppable force - you don't strike from a hidden darkness, rather you are
seen coming, but your victims are powerless to stop you. Despite being
generally slow, the player is not sluggish. Many motions can be executed
swiftly and efficiently, such as darting into cover or aiming. Outbursts of
power are short and often rapid, enhancing the predatory feeling of the player.
Like a big cat that stalks its prey, conserving its energy until the final
moment when it releases its fury like a tightly wound spring. Each mission
should feed into this sensation of a spring being wound, the tension building
as the player draws nearer upon his target until the final release. The player
can sense the dread building in their soon-to-be-victims.
As mentioned the player is not invincible.
Regenerating health is strictly off-the-table. Between missions the player is
able to repair and recuperate but must pay the price, with only some of the
damage often being covered by your medical plan. The player may also pay in
terms of missed opportunities, since being out of commission to recuperate may
mean having to pass up certain missions, thus foregoing the possibility of the
rewards (both monetary and status). Within missions, the player must make do
with what is at hand. Compared to a normal human the player can take an
incredible amount of damage, and this puts it into the ballpark occupied by the
typical first-person shooter. That the player can keep going is a testament to
his cybernetic nature. Damage becomes visible on the player, like the
terminator, so that even as the player takes large amounts of damage, this
serves to reinforce the impression of an unstoppable force, as despite ripped
flesh, burns, etc. the player is able to keep coming, mangled and horrific.
The game is hard. Despite the advantages the
player is given against his foes, he is put into situations that still require
a great deal of tactics. Because the player is a deliberately moving cyborg
skill does not manifest so much in the usual first-person spheres of movement
and aiming, but rather in the tactical deployment of abilities. In order to
succeed the player must think like a cyborg - cold and calculating.
The player is always the villain. The player is
essentially irredeemable, being a veteran rectifier. There is no realization of
working for the bad guys, no sudden change of heart, no girl who helps the
player rediscover his humanity. No!
You sold your soul long ago, and there is no getting it back. The arc of the
player can only end in tragedy, in the slowly dawning recognition that his path
can only end in his own destruction. That for as powerful as he feels, as much
power as he acquires, there always remain wheels of power that are forever out
of his reach. Ultimately, he can be no more than a tool, and when finally used
up, he can be of no use to anyone.
Is the player character necessarily male? Yes. Even before any cybernetic augmentations
the player character was the very expression of maleness that is deemed
aberrant by civilized society. The predatory male. The dominating male. The
violent, sexually frustrated male. Not good-looking (ugly in fact), not
intelligent (in ways that society recognizes), and not advantaged by birth or
position, the player-character learns to acquire power by hurting people, and
so becomes expert at doing so. That this acquisition of power enriches the
player character yet still leaves the levers of power out of reach serves as a
source of continual internal frustration. The augmentations necessary to become
more capable in his field only further alienate him from the society within
which on some unconscious level he seeks approval. He commands respect only by
fear. He is a monster. Despite all the wealth acquired from his position he
must still pay for sex from women who would be considered somewhat desirable,
and this too frustrates him. The game deals with the pathology of a
particularly male mind whose job entails a male power fantasy and explores how
that is a miserable existence.
Even the act of acquiring power ultimately
becomes emasculating, removing agency from the hands of the player character
and the player. From the start all cars are self-driving, a source of quiet
frustration for the player character. But guns are also to a large degree
self-aiming. The player can choose to disable some of these features and doing
so is in keeping with the psyche of the player character, yet it incurs a
penalty since without assistance the game becomes less like a conventional
shooter and more like a simulator - uncompromisingly difficult. Upgrades then
take the weapons from familiar shooter territory into more cheat-like areas -
the domain of wallhacks and aimbots.
Aesthetic
Despite being cyberpunk (or cyberpunk by proxy) the game doesn't indulge too deeply in the clichés of a cyberpunk-ian world. It is not eternally night lit by neon pinks and cyans. The world is crumbling and destitute, its decay not hidden in darkness or in shady corners but instead in full display. It's the hot July sun beating down on the cracked pavement of a deserted Los Angeles parking lot. It's the sounds of creaking floorboards and bedsprings in response to the noontime lovemaking of a couple in a musty apartment complex. As in Blade Runner, the future is old, and there is more of the 70's, 80's and 90's here than there is of the "future". Technology is ubiquitous and also nearly invisible. Cars don't fly and there is no escape from the heat, from the stench, from the relentless feeling of suffocation. The future is a creaking, ambling monstrosity. Much of the game takes place during the daytime and this "murder in broad daylight" serves to emphasize just how dystopian this future is, how numb and indifferent the populace has become.
Art Style
Not sure yet what it should aim for. Lighting should be on the realistic side of things to capture that blown-out, sun-baked on concrete look (not as commonly depicted on film but as experienced in reality). Maybe a little comic-book style with exaggerated proportions leaning in a Robert Valley sort of direction but not so extreme. Should capture some of the feeling of illustrated line-work without resorting to lines, a kind of illustrated 3D. Colour palette employs a lot of pastels, playing into that sun-baked look. Washed out sky blues and scorched orange-yellows, cast against concrete grays and black gunmetal.
It's not really cyberpunk
Despite existing in the general vicinity of cyberpunk, it's not really cyberpunk. There isn't a true punk aesthetic, an undercurrent of potential for change, of taking down the system. Hope is gone from this world, as everyone seeks to exploit everyone else.
The game is a simulation-rich shooter
Taking inspiration from immersive sims, it aims to create a convincing world and consistent rules and let the player loose in it. Firefights can be tight and intense, seeming to be tightly choreographed, but they unfold according to more general rules rather than mission-specific scripting. Unlike immersive sims though, the player does not have a wealth of options, taking a stealthy approach or a talking approach or a non-lethal approach etc. The player's options are limited, which informs about the nature of the player character. Replayability of levels is thus encouraged, and in doing so the player comes to notice more details of the world and aspects of the player character's psyche. This is probably just a bloviated way of saying that the game is like Hitman.
Recurring Theme
Looking in mirrors. The world of first-person shooters is typically nearly devoid of mirrors, even in recent ones. Where mirrors are present and they properly reflect the player character this usually serves only to highlight how disjointed the player character's movements appear. In Rectifier mirrors would be a recurring device, with the player character regarding himself in them. The player character's movements would be naturalistic (an effect aided by his deliberate pace) and the appearance of a natural-seeming reflection within the world will help to ground the player character within the world. Having said that, just because mirrors are a theme doesn't mean they are frequent or should be obvious. They appear in places that they should naturally appear and it is up to the player to seek them out.
References / Influences
Ion Storm, Eidos Montreal. (2000 - 2017) Deus Ex [Video game series]. Eidos Interactive, Square Enix.
Monolith Productions. (2005) F.E.A.R. [Video game]. Sierra Entertainment.
Starbreeze Studios. (2012) Syndicate [Video game]. Electronic Arts.
The Terminator. (1984) Directed by James Cameron [Film]. Los Angeles, Calif.: Orion Pictures.
Robocop. (1987) Directed by Paul Verhoeven [Film]. Los Angeles, Calif.: Orion Pictures.
Heat. (1995) Directed by Michael Mann [Film]. Burbank, Calif.: Warner Bros. Pictures.
Collateral. (2004) Directed by Michael Mann [Film]. Universal City, Calif.: DreamWorks Pictures.
The International. (2009) Directed by Tom Tykwer [Film]. Culver City, Calif.: Columbia Pictures.
The Matrix. (1999) Directed by the Wachowskis [Film]. Burbank, Calif.: Warner Bros. Pictures.
IO Interactive. (2000 - 2017) Hitman [Video game series]. Eidos Interactive, Square Enix.
