Diablo 4: A Terminal Deficit of Soul

One knows basically what to expect when starting a new game of Diablo: archetypal role-playing game class selections, gothic Christian aesthetics, and hordes of hellish monsters to vanquish. In this, Diablo 4 is perfectly competent. Unfortunately, however, the game suffers from a catastrophic lack of character. Having raised my sorcerer to level 100 and turned the endgame treadmill over a few times, I feel a disappointing indifference to the entire game.

I finally bought and played Diablo 4 during it’s much-lauded overhaul Season 4, called “Loot Reborn.” I cannot therefore comment on the apparently even less playable state it was in for the first three seasons. What I can say, though, is that by season 4 some extremely-online game designers have certainly gotten ahold of the game. In its current incarnation, Diablo 4 has been woven out of too many baroque, interconnected, and exhaustingly “gamey” systems. From the paragon boards to masterworking items, Diablo 4 hasn’t done enough with its world and fiction to justify these intricate, fiddly systems.

New Cycle: Humanity on the Brink

New Cycle entered early-access a few days ago and I was tempted enough to take a look at the latest in an ever-growing niche of mid-size city-builders. What I found was a startling, melancholy requiem for humanity, teetering on the brink of disaster, yet stoically carrying on, perhaps in vain. 

New Cycle fits into a genre of colony-management and/or city-building games that operate at the scale of individual citizens and buildings. At the far end of the city simulation genre you have, of course, SimCity and Cities: Skylines, which set as their target a mimesis of the North American urban-suburban sprawl configured around freeway interchanges and zoning laws. At the other end of the simulation genre is the Sims franchise, which simulates the daily lives of individual people, their ambitions and trials, along with the exact placement of dining tables and stairs inside each home.

Far Cry New Dawn: All in the Family

Far Cry New Dawn was released in 2019 as a spin off of Far Cry 5. The game was initially priced at about $40 which reflects its limited scope. Speaking broadly, I am strongly in favor of developers making further use of already-developed assets such as the world of Hope County, the dialog and weapon systems, and whatever else they can repurpose. Developing new open world games is a massive undertaking, and supposing that each one can hold only one story, only one game experience, is absurd. 

That said, the Hope County presented by New Dawn is in fact fairly reworked, both to reflect time’s passage after the apocalyptic end of FC5, and to, I suspect, give the game an aesthetic recognizably distinct in single screen shots. That aesthetic can be summed up in a single word: pink. Everything is pink! From the rolling fields of blossoms to the many train carriages, storage containers, cars both derelict and running, and even the game’s interface, everything glows with a hot neon pink. I was immediately reminded of the similar spin-off-expansion: inFAMOUS First Light, which bears a similar style.

New Dawn barrels right into the contradictions in tone that Far Cry is famous for. On one hand we have an overarching narrative theme of “family” – everyone is related to someone in this game. Our main quest-giving guide is none other than Kim Rye, whose daughter Carmina was born during the events of Far Cry 5 (with the player’s help of course). We will rescue the pilot and father Nick Rye early on as well. Our main antagonists are twin sisters: Mickey and Lou, who constantly refer to their Old Man. Hurk Drubman Jr. has a child, who is apparently under the care of his cousin Sharky Boshaw. Joseph Seed, it turns out, also has had a son who has taken up leadership of New Eden, remnants of the Project at Eden’s Gate cult.

Far Cry 5: An Illustrative Mess

When performing criticism of a videogame, I feel that playing it some time after its release presents certain advantages: firstly, we are removed from the marketing hype that has built up some expectations in the player, which may or may not be delivered by the game itself. Next, the game is in a more ‘complete’ state after additions, game of the year editions, and various patches are applied. Lastly, in some cases, there is a removal from the particular social moment of the game’s release which can provide a new lens through which to view the game. This three-part defamiliarization adds up to provide an interesting, and I think, beneficial perspective from which to review a game. This is not to say that this five-years-late review is the proper way to consider a game, certainly I wouldn’t preference one method above the other in absolute terms. However, in my overall pursuit to use criticism to add meaning to games rather than to provide a buyer’s guide, then I feel this approach is just as valid as any other.

Playing Ubisoft's Far Cry 5 (FC5) in 2023 is certainly an experience unlike any other. The game follows the now well-established structure of the Far Cry series which involves a discrete chunk of territory being gradually 'liberated’ from a hostile force through individual, guerilla-style tactics. The silent player-character arrives as an outsider who works with locals to unite a resistance and turn the tide on the enemy forces. In this case the “Project at Eden’s Gate” is a Christian doomsday cult whose charismatic, hipster-styled leader Joseph Seed is bent on preparing his flock for the great collapse of society. He and his three siblings (Jacob, Faith, and John) have taken violent control of the fictitious “Hope County” set in the American state of Montana. 

Before moving any farther, we must reiterate the point here: FC5 positions a group of Christian Americans, led by a quartet of white champions as the enemy. The innumerable members of the cult are not exclusively white (indeed they are perhaps a more diverse racial group than one might expect to find in a real Montana), but these enemies are definitely not presented as a brown-skinned ‘other’ with exotic characteristics and religion. Many, many games are criticized for the facile dehumanization of the enemy through that kind of race-based othering, not least of all the Far Cry series. Whatever else follows, Ubisoft published a game where a group of American Christians are the bad guys. This should not be lost.