Evil is as evil does.


Role-playing survival game is willing to take risks

In the past I’ve spoken about my distaste of Bioware RPGs, one of the main elements is their lackluster treatment of evil characters in their games. A recent entry from Corvus on Fable 2 and the way it deals with evil characters has sparked this idea I’ve had for sometime.

For now I don’t know if I want to make this a RPG or an open world action game, I do know the story. The main character of this game is evil, not evil with a touch of good in him or evil that a caring woman can fix, but pure evil. His goal is to take over a warring continent and have everyone bow down to him ; those that don’t will be killed. The prologue is that he along with other people was experimented on, with each person given unique abilities by a strange element on the planet. The element was all used up and the governments were afraid that they couldn’t control them so they began to hunt them down and kill them. The main character went into hiding and has managed to avoid being killed. He emerges when the village he was hiding in discovers who he is and tries to kill him for the reward, which he responds by killing every single person in the village and establishes it as a base camp to launch his attack.

What follows is the main character’s plan to build up a strike force of the remaining enhanced people to attack the three main governments on the continent; each one has its own philosophy and a plan to destroy the other ones. The game has a Suikoden like vibe to it as you’ll have to recruit the other people; depending on the actions of the player some will not join you leave your team, or try to kill you. While the main character is evil, his goal of stopping the war is what brings these people together. There will be plenty of times that the player must choose the response of the main character; instead of good/evil it is closer to evil/really evil. Unlike other games with evil characters, there won’t be choices like “steal money from children” and other ones where the character is shown as a jerk. The main character doesn’t have the time or care for trivial matters and the player will make the decisions on greater matters. Depending on the order the player takes on the three governments will determine the final event as the last remaining government enacts a final plan to kill the character.

I still have a few concerns about this idea however, which keep me from writing up a game document. First is the game play, regardless of the genre the game will be real time; the player will have allies that join him on his various adventures. I’m not sure the extent and the involvement they will have. For now, each person will have their own methods of improving their skills and growing stronger beyond the standard EXP bar seen in most rpgs. The bigger issue is with the morality of the situation and its effect on the player. This isn’t a character with a heart of gold, he really wants to end this war by any means necessary and will kill a lot of people, and I know that a lot of people may have a problem with such a polarizing character. I have no intention of making him become good by the end of the game, and I wonder how many people would be put off by the game by the end of the first cut scene? Game length is another issue, I don’t know if I want this to be a really short game with high replay ability, or a long game with moderate to low replay ability. Other then the story and a few of the game concepts, this idea isn’t that far along compared to my other RPG idea I revealed a few weeks ago.

I always like to come up with ideas that haven’t been seen before; this one is no exception, once again any comments you have would be appreciated.

Josh