Characters with character

My recent foray into character design got me thinking about characters in general. I made a statement something to the tune of "most space marines suck because you can't see their face." That really got me thinking about characters, and how we come to care for them, because a face isn't everything.

Lets try an exercise. Picture a game with great facial animation, say Heavy Rain. There are some spectacular moments in that. It was a game that's real purpose was to make you feel the emotion. I can say that I grew attached to most of the characters over my play threw. Now think further back, picture a game from your childhood that resonates with you, like an early Final Fantasy (if you were into that). NES and SNES games had a very limited emotional range, yet we could still get attached to the characters.

Only one of these characters can suplex a train

There is a simple answer to why we resonate with these pixelated jumbles, it is the relatable humanity injected into each character. The game uses our experiences to guide us through this fantasy world emotionally. That said, this relies heavily on characterization. If the character doesn't have a clear face, give them a voice, no voice? give them emotion. A good Dev could make you care about a tiny square by giving it relatable a quality.

This really fascinates me, we are such emotional creatures. We want things to connect, feel, and in the end be right and happy. Give that square a problem and the player will want to solve it. Make the square experience something that by chance the player has, say, heartbreak, and you instantly create a report. As humans we tend to want to project our emotions onto just about anything, and we can if the person/animal/object etc lends itself to this.

That said, looking at today's market it's pretty pathetic. I mean, by those standards over half the games on the store shelves have characters that are complete and utter failures. Characters so hollow and devoid of life the only thing they can do is let you puppet them and kill things vicariously through them. Sometimes it's because the writing falls short, other times it is literally all the developer is shooting for (no pun intended).

I do not think the industry really needs to grow past this, honestly there is mindless fun to be had (look at the movie industry). What I want to see is the games industry to try harder, and I want to stop hearing fanboys talk about how amazing their favorite Space Marine is (yeah, looking at you Halo fanboys). There will always be that immature aspect to gaming, just like in film. I really want to stress that, games and movies share many elements and honestly games aren't going to rise above and be placed on some holy artistic pedestal. We just need to work on the ratio. How about this: for every Expendables let there be a Scott Pilgrim, for every Piranha 3D let there be an Up, for every Last Airbender let there be an Inception. The movie industry has balanced itself, now its time for games. The important thing is not to step backward but to keep striving forward. Find new ways to make people connect with characters in games. The industry can't rely on Gordon Freeman forever.