In GUN, you have a linear story and mission structure. The map is segmented into a few zones, with story-specific areas locked off or built into the overworld. Along with this, the game has a few limited sandbox zones, mostly in the generic western one-street town where the player can gain a wanted level, and then a very limited number of side activities like hunting rare animals or bounty hunting missions out in the wider world. I remember feeling that this world was very vast despite the technological restraints, and how realistic it all felt despite how quaint it looks today. But the purpose of this post is not nostalgia-bait.
Near the beginning of the game there is a mission where you are battling in a fort. I don't remember exactly who you're fighting or why, but you can go back here after progressing, even during the post-game. This area is separated from the "main" mostly desert western setting, being a more green forested area with waterfalls. I remember playing the game after beating it, and traveling back here on my horse. Running back through the fort, I was put on a very linear path, the same as you ran through in the story sections, and found the entire area was extremely closed in an simple, like a piece of the linear level structure placed into this open world. You were never really intended to come back here. Similarly dotted around the map were the rare animal locations and bounty missions, which once you collected them and the rewards you could revisit them and find them empty, with nothing there. There's even a mysterious spiritual indian cave not to far from the main town, which serves no purpose except in a single story cutscene, but you can freely travel there whenever you wish once you have the ability to move about in the open world.
The vibe this game put off was incredible to me. It was a very specific feeling; the world is alive, but not by much. The great beasts of the land were slayed, the great wilds already plundered and looted, the important characters fading away or disappeared after their story cutscenes wrote them out. You can still "play" in it, but the facade becomes obvious as the seams come loose. But it's important to remember that this is only because you've already completed the main quest. Before that point, as long as a quest marker or mission pops up on your compass, anything could happen, any new area could open up. But once the main story has completed and its emotional arc is concluded, you're left with a world that feels strangely empty and forlorn.
What if a fantasy world could end up in this state?
Endless Summer
The dark lord has been defeated. The evil cult has been thwarted from summoning their dark God, and the portal that could allow it to enter our world is shut for good. The corruption that plagued the minds of all sorcerers and magic users has been banished as the astral parasite was removed, and society is freed from their influence. The great emotional and dramatic arc of the world has been completed. But then... nothing happens.
People still go about their daily lives, but something is different. New spells and technologies stop being invented. Monsters become more and more rare. All of the great relics and items that could constitute a great quest have been found already, and no new ones are discovered. Time has not stopped, but the meaningful progression of time seemingly has. There may still be conflict over resources and races and between religious orders and factions, but they all seem trite and unimportant, just repeats of more significant conflicts in the past. It's like the world has run out of "content".
In a (not live service) video game, this happens because of the limitations of the developers and eventually the memory of the disc or cartridge or other hardware. There is only so much "game" they can make or want to make. But in a secondary fantasy world space, the events of the world that we invent (either as historical background lore or as a campaign to be played within) are diegetic; they come from cause-effect relationships in the world, exactly as the real world and the endless churning wheel of time. But that doesn't necessarily have to be the case.
Perhaps the Gods have gotten bored of their creation, and went off to astral realms or higher realities to abandon this one. Perhaps the great apocalypse the heroes stopped was supposed to have happened, the heroes were supposed to have failed. Now the great weave of fate has run out of thread, and a great vitality and potentiality to everything has been sapped from the world itself, invisibly, leaving the world the same size, the same depth, but there is simply less in it.
This concept is distinct from a fantasy world having an "Age of Sail" or "Magic Industrialization" moment, as these are a great change which may kill a bit of the magic or fill in the corners of the map, but still lead to great story opportunities or uncovering many mysteries. The Endless Summer is a bit more of an anti-mystery, and anti-quest. There are no more quests. The world has history, but it's the end of history. It's like an aged MMO where you see a bunch of epic level adventurers running around in glowing magma-forged gear shining with exotic mounts crowding the main town doing the same daily quests. No new players are joining the game.
What is the eventual fate of such a world? I do not know. Maybe the elves and dwarves and orcs and humans who have made a truce with each other decide to defeat the dark lord of undeath decide to break the truce, but their heart just isn't in it, and the next year they reinstate it for lack of things to fight over. Maybe the old bickering blood-feud between two families comes to a standstill as whenever some obscure relative is killed of one family, a new indistinguishable one appears from some far off corner; like they're appearing out of nowhere to keep things the same. Farmers fields seem more and more stable each passing year, raids from goblins are less effective, and adventurers clearing out their caves find the exact same artifacts as the last group from last year. It's as though things grinding to a halt, and the invisible machinery behind the scenes has begun to break down. The most existential and deadly of all fates that can befall a world is this one, as any attempt to escape it or change the course is stopped with incredible inertia as people become totally set in their ways, uncaring, keeping the same problems and the same solutions, as if ontologically worn out and trapped in a diorama. Like a demiurge's creation sealed in a glass case and glued down to preserve it in this one state forever. The sun is still bright and the grass still sways and the crickets chirp and all is peaceful in the summer sun but the peaceful summer day never ends.
No comments:
Post a Comment