I mentioned in another thread that the police angle will probably be used as a convenient framing device for the setting and mechanics, to the point that it won’t matter to the story being told.
But that in itself isn’t a good or neutral thing. Even if it plays the “corruption in the police force” angle, it’ll probably still portray the ideal of being an officer as an objective good.
I almost always go to bat for Platinum’s design and exuberant presentation, but even when there’s good subtext to their work, I find a lot of instances of deeply shallow ideas in their games (e.g. the way the first Bayonetta implies an undercurrent of competitive hostility between women).
Would the game have failed because it’s a pulpy story that wasn’t interested in real world commentary and instead uses the premise of a SciFi police unit to set up gameplay in which you are investigating attacks and defending people?
It would fail for me, yes. In my book, that’s half-assing the premise.
In the United States, playing as a police officer in a video game is complicated. Our country deals with police brutality and police shootings. I recognize in Japan that the police are very different. Can you tell me what the perception of the police is in Japan, and how a Japanese audience responds to playing as the police?
Hmm. Let’s see. Well, I don’t think there’s people within Japan who have an extreme view on the police department.
Through this game we want to give the police the image of being a hero. You can’t do things in this game like hurt people. We want to have the player feel like they’re being heroic as they progress through the game.
Also, I think it’d be good, too, if you generally have a negative image of the police, but you play through this game, that your image or opinion of the police changes as a result of playing the game.
I don’t know enough about Japan’s police force to comment on his opinions, but perhaps the response to hearing about a country’s issues with police shootings and brutality is not… hey maybe you’ll like the police a little better after playing our cool game.
So I was literally in the middle of writing a comment talking about after reading this thread feeling like I couldn’t make a reasonable guess about what stance the game is going to take, but this quote kind of says it all, dunnit?
Anyway, yeah ACAB, but this game looks tight. The music in the trailer made me emotional in the ways Nier:Automata’s did. I can appreciate the craft and aesthetics of the thing while still being critical of other elements.
There are some other really great lines in that interview and I highly recommend it to folks interested in the game:
In the past few years, cyberpunk has become trendy again.
First off, I should start by saying that we didn’t start working on Astral Chain thinking we’d make a cyberpunk game. We were actually trying to make a fantasy game where you would use magic.
What you see now is the result of talking a lot with Nintendo along through the development process, because we realized that there were lots of other games set in a fantasy setting. We wanted to make Astral Chain stand out among other games. And that’s what you see now.
So it evolved from fantasy to cyberpunk?
Yeah, that’s right.
While we were making it, actually, I was influenced by a lot of different anime that I liked. For example, Ghost in the Shell and Appleseed. And we used designs like that as a motif to build the setting that you see before you now
During the Nintendo Treehouse, a comment was made that if you find and visit all the bathrooms in the game something “special” happens and I am SUPER curious to find out what it is.
Honestly, I have been trying to internally articulate and process what it is about having a cop-centric/pro-cop focused that initially rubbed me the wrong way, and I do not have a great answer or reasoning.
I do think I am personally hung up on the fact that the characters are dressed in riot gear with the word POLICE and that cop blue all over it. If they were called something else, even if it were something super uncreative like, I dunno, “legion” or “enforcers” I feel like I would find that more okay. It’s honestly something about seeing “police” and knowing what police are, and especially what they stand for in America, that is off putting for me.
There is something about the way I approach and engage with games where I gravitate towards material in which there is a slight level of abstraction. I am trying to think of a good way to put it… I think there is a way to do the exact thing that the director is articulating in the interview without having to use the word police. I get the sense that there are good intentions behind this work and still think everything I have read and seen about the relationship between the protagonist and the creatures is interesting and the sort of conflict I am interested in a game but, still, something about having to be not simply a protector of the peace in this cyberpunk setting but a police officer is just a little off putting.
I will add that there is probably supreme irony in the fact that I am have written this poorly articulated mash while my wife sits next to me watching Law & Order.
In America there really is no good cop media. The police have an all seeing eye and anyone who tries to reign in police behavior is bad. Even shows that see enjoyable like Brooklyn 99 or castle still perpetuate this idea of police being inherently good and beneficial. Bad cops are this rare thing. It is a rare piece of fiction that revolves around cops that shows them as part of this larger system designed to maintain status quo.
In Japan things are different. There isn’t the same history of police being used as a tool of the state to violently oppress already marginalized populations. The overwhelming majority of Japanese officers don’t carry guns. They’re not kitted out for a murder party as part of the days regular business. This isn’t to say that Japanese police are the virtuous heroes Japanese TV makes then out to be (especially since so much of Japanese cop TV is blatantly ripped off of American shows), but there are different assumptions being made with them.
With all police media you have to think about the level of power these people have in society. And in video games you have to think of how you as a player are being made to wield that power. If a game is encouraging violence to get confessions because “we know he is lying” then that is fucked. No matter what fictional setting the game takes place in we are experiencing it in our current world. They are using police because we know what police are today. To say the idea is totally abstract from real world policing would be a lie. Otherwise why use cops at all?
That’s not to say that this is going to be bad. It is just something to think about. I’m someone who doesn’t really watch cop movies or TV shows. That’s not a power fantasy I have, but if other people are into it then so be it.
Like all things, it’s a personal line type of thing. I think as leftists, we all understand acab, and the reasons why, and like all problematic media, have to decide what goes across our personal line. For example, my roommate loves Brooklyn 99, and though you have to remind yourself about all the problematic aspects, I find inoffensive enough to sit in the room and watch it with him and even laugh at some of the jokes. My other friend loves NCIS and I wouldn’t even attempt to sit in and watch it, I don’t like that stuff at all. Where will Astral Chain fall on that list? I think it’s prudent to wait and see personally, but I’m not going to fault anyone here for taking the plunge.
While there is room for nuance regarding discussion of the police, I gotta say… ACAB isn’t just an expression of dismissal. It IS used that way far too often, but it still rings true about the institution of policing. You may have had good experiences here and there with individual state actors, but that doesn’t mean they don’t work for and uphold ideas that are socially very harmful.
If it matters to this discussion at all… I have a masters degree in criminology and criminal justice. I have spent a lot of time examining these systems and the people that work within them. Even talking to and working with some of them on class assignments out of necessity. They are people, for sure. I don’t find it helpful to dehumanize or demonize cops as much as many leftists seem to, but it’s important we make the distinction between individuals and the institutions they work for.
I love Brooklyn 99, some of my favorite books have cops as protagonists. I’m not opposed to media that uses them in that way. I’m REALLY excited about this game. That doesn’t stop me from wanting significant reform or even, as I have stated in other threads on this very forum, abolition.
Many of the roles the police fill that don’t involve the use of state sanctioned violence could easily be filled by other, more qualified workers, and I will beat that drum until I die.
A games creative being upfront about the baseline assumptions baked into their work, while not at all a justification for the mistakes they’ve made, at least allows us as an audience to directly engage with that messaging instead of taking stabs in the dark about what is the intentionality of the text w/r/t most AAA games.
The dishonesty of the latter goes beyond just dancing around the subject matter, it serves to frame attempts toward critical analysis of their cultural messaging as politically polarized audience projection.
It’s easier to set your expectations when the game is flat-out saying “we think cops are Good and Cool”.
My point is that creative works speak for themselves in spite of what the creator would like them to say. We don’t know what the game is flat-out saying yet. It isn’t out!
Look, I don’t agree with my post being flagged, but I will delete it. I was not trying to upset anyone. I was trying to illuminate how much mental energy is spent attempting to prove that a work will suck, or fail, or be bad, or be harmful before we know absolutely anything about the actual work. We know what people involved in the creative process say, and we may guess at what that might mean about what the work may or may not end up saying for itself, but we should know by now that the pre-release cycle is absolutely loaded with fraught, pandering, and sometimes just flat-out inaccurate messaging that has nothing to do with the finished work. This person says that, then some other person at the same company walks it back, then the company itself says a third thing, then some footage comes out that proves all of that is wrong - and all the while, for months, we’re trying to make a declarative, conclusive statement about something that is being purposefully obfuscated from us.
At this point, I believe it is a mistake to try and guess what a game will do or say based on what someone says in an interview. They are wrong all the fucking time. Yet here we are, grinding our gears over a literally imagined version of a game. And then we jump down each other’s throats for keeping our hopes up, or thinking the gameplay still looks good, or otherwise ‘ignoring’ what everyone else is screaming about that will surely make enjoying the game ethically impossible, and you a heartless shithead for liking it. It’s fucked up.
We should feel free to criticize messaging, or people, but it’s like, WILD to try and criticize the work already.
I agree with what you’ve said in your edit on this post. Something that has been increasingly bothering me lately is how quick to judge and dismiss a game before anyone has even played it this community can be.
We all talk a big game about nuanced discussion but this behavior comes across as reactionary to me. That’s not to say there aren’t instances where immediate reactions aren’t relevant (I’m looking at you, Cyberpunk 2077), but I sure wish it wasn’t the norm.
What next? Are we going to start dismissing books out of hand because the summary on the jacket doesn’t indicate the book itself will have any depth?
i think there’s a point where media that eg likes cops isn’t just a personal problem anymore.
the existence of cyberpunk 2077, for example, hurts trans people and cdpr’s done nothing thus far towards changing that.
for this game, at least for me, it’s murky. that particular excerpt from the interview is troubling, to say the least. and that lady cop in the trailer sure did forcibly mind-meld with a sentient being and put a literal chain around their neck… i like the idea of playing a character in multiple bodies, but not like this. does she realize she and by extension the whole force did a bad thing, even if the chimera end up being thoroughly terrible? she has a line near the end that makes me think it might go this way, but we don’t know for sure yet.
(this is the trailer i’m looking at, for context)
on the other hand, character action isn’t the domain of real life police. it doesn’t seem like we know anything about their everyday duties (or methods?), except that they apparently think enslaving your enemies is totally fine. we also don’t know if the game thinks enslaving your enemies is totally fine.
so i know enough to be uncomfortable and possibly make a decision for myself, but not enough to feel certain of whether astral chain is outright hostile and harmful. i’m skeptical it can materially change the way people view the police as an institution - not only because of how far removed from reality it seems thus far, but it’s only a single work, for a niche audience, in the context of a culture where the legal system knows about crime drama.
when it’s so murky, my thought is… wear thy sword as long as thee can. i won’t begrudge problematic faves as long as people recognize the faults, but if i’m asking myself questions like these, i’m halfway out the door already.
this is platinum, though, so i’m probably going to be standing in this particular doorway for awhile.
Reading through this thread, I’m curious about how other people here think of the distinction between latent and overt connections to the real world.
Specifically, I enjoyed Mass Effect 1 and 2* but I really didn’t like how that series has you playing as a supercop (even before I learned ACAB) but also that it’s constantly leaning on the idea that the government is a joke that cannot make decisions. Only individual heroic actors like Shepherd can really get anything done.
I don’t think the games wanted to say that, but those are absolutely latent messages they conveyed.
With Astral Chain, it’s overtly showing cops and you are a cop protagonist apparently because that’s just a person of virtue. This is certainly a red flag to be aware of for me (as is the controlling of other sentient beings), but I don’t really know what the game is yet? I’m primed to be aware and critical of the messages this game puts out but it doesn’t feel like it’s already compromised (unlike Cyberpunk 2077).
I have some detachment from things because I’m privileged, and the cops in my country don’t get to carry guns just because. So I wouldn’t be surprised if the existence of cops in this game is just more affecting for other people, but I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop before I can learn whether the underlying politics in this game are bad or not.
Shephard is 100% bad cop. Even as a paragon she’s a dick. It’s the one thing I dislike most, which is the ends justifies the means version of justice. And how any politician who is like “Maybe don’t murder everyone on your path to glory” is bad. But I still have a soft spot for bioeware games even though I kinda hate all of them. I would’ve forgiven all of those games’ flaws if they had a BFF option where me and Legion and Tali could’ve posted up in an engine bay being weird about ships and machines.
So the thing about all cops being bad is that, for me being black, I cannot relax in the presence of any police. So even with ‘good cops’ if they are having a bad day or I look like someone that is sleeping with their mom or whatever they might just shoot me and all of society will rush for reasons why it is deserved. It’s not that any particular cop might do something, it is that they are all allowed to do whatever they want. And then cop media reinforces their ability to do whatever they want.
Even with good shows like the Wire, the police are almost always dealing with criminals. We are missing out on the aspect of policing where a non criminal is minding their own business and is in a life or death situation because the police have shown up. Like say, maybe a 13 year old girl getting punched in the face for no reason? You just cannot know which police are going to be the ones who want to kill you. And that isn’t something that is really addressed. Because in all of these shows the police are still dealing with people the audience knows are either criminals or people engaging in activities that border on crime. There aren’t the story lines about cops beating homeless people to within an inch of their life for fun and getting away with it then getting awards from the police union for being awesome. As long as the thin blue line exist, as long as blue lives matter is a thing then no police in America can be trusted. There cannot be a good officer. No amount of playing basketball with black kids will change this.
This game is being made outside of that context so it’s not necessarily awful, but this game is being released in America and it’s good to at least think about the difference in perception.
I will play astral chain when it’s $20 in a year. I hope a lot of people buy it. I love these AA studios. I’m sad there are so few of them left.
