The game industry is notorious for a number of problems, one of them being an almost complete unwillingness to let any information slip out even a second before schedule. But almost paradoxically, despite this level of secrecy, leaks are commonplace. Gaming journalists like Jason Schreier and Laura Kate Dale over at Kotaku have broken stories of upcoming projects, games, and announcements with great accuracy, and before the publishers in question wanted the leaked knowledge to go public.
That said, video games are not the only source of entertainment with such unscheduled reveals. Early last month, one of the oldest collectible card games around had a premature disclosure. Before the leak, it was widely known that Magic: The Gathering’s next set of cards would take place in the plane of Dominaria, but one of their offices in China erroneously sent out specifics on what cards would be contained in this set, along with mechanical or verbiage changes that would be in effect going forward. I’m not interested in discussing the leak itself in any significant detail. Instead, I want to discuss the response from the company that makes Magic, Wizards of the Coast(WotC), and how they provide a stark contrast to how the game industry handles similar events.
Yet before we do, it’s important to understand how the game industry tends to act when details are revealed to the public before their intended date. When leaks happen, the first thing publishers almost always do is deny it in very specific terms, or go radio silent. Before her current job at Kotaku UK, Laura Dale was a journalist working for Destructoid UK, where she disclosed that a new DLC project, titled Rush of Blood, was coming to Until Dawn for the PlayStation 4’s VR headset. The developers, Supermassive Games, hosted an AMA on Reddit shortly thereafter, where they both declined to comment on the story and specifically stated that there was “no DLC” in the works.
To most people, that reads as if the story Laura Dale reported had no basis in reality, but that would’ve been a misconception. Until Dawn: Rush of Blood was absolutely being developed for PlayStation VR. The difference is that it was never going to be a DLC for the base game: It was a stand-alone. Technically, no lie was ever spoken, as the claim that “no DLC” was being developed was completely true. Still, rather than just reveal that game’s existence, both Sony and Supermassive Games deliberately tried to obfuscate the truth of the matter. In the similar case of premature release of the PS4 Slim, Sony took the less egregious path of just declining comment.
Denying the story isn’t the only thing publishers are viable to do in response. Occasionally, punitive actions are taken against the outlet who released the information. Historically, this comes in the form of blacklisting said source, refusing to answer inquiries from them and/or give them pre-release product for the purpose of review. Kotaku has famously been the victim of several such orders, with Bethesda as a result of their Fallout 4 leak and Ubisoft after Assassin’s Creed: Victory (later Syndicate) details were disclosed prior to the game’s official announcement. Laura Dale faced similar stonewalling from Nintendo after uncovering the existence of the Switch. While these companies are obviously within their rights to refuse requests for comment, deny rumors, or to hand out review copies, it frequently comes across as needlessly combative.
Which brings us back to Wizards. Shortly after the Dominaria spoilers came to light, translated within days after its release, WotC wrote a blog post on their website about it. Rather than pretend it didn’t happen and sweep it under the rug, they publicly acknowledged the existence of the information. In order to avoid potential confusion, mistranslation, and idle speculation, their team opted to provide official copies of the leak’s contents in various languages. This isn’t to say that they were happy it happened, and even in their acknowledgment WotC says they are disappointed in how this information came out, but they were able to roll with the punches. There were even plans to accelerate the pace of the reveal until the fans themselves said that while they were excited: They still wanted something similar to the “usual” hype that surrounds a new set being released.
Admittedly, I and many of my friends who play Magic would not have heard about these leaks without Wizards official acknowledgment of them. That said, most of us had our own separate reactions to it. Scouring through list of new cards, I was already starting to plan new decks, and modifications to decks I had already built. I and one of my co-workers began to talk about how some of the new rule changes could impact the games we play over lunch. Some of my gender-nonconformist friends latched onto the fact that “he or she” would be replaced with “they”, both reducing the wordiness of card text and subtly acknowledging the existence of the gender spectrum. There was a lot to talk about, and almost all of it was positive. Despite the way it came out, it was still cool to have the “hype train” start a little early, and all of us were excited to see what else would come.
My point isn’t that game publishers necessarily have to go public and admit the full details of every project that gets leaked. WotC didn’t even do that. They kept more than a few details, like the art for the cards, secret so they still had something to surprise their audience with. That said, this incident clearly shows that there is room to handle these kinds of disclosures tactfully. What Wizards did that the game industry rarely does is seamlessly transformed it into part of their marketing. It didn’t even require them to make any actual changes to their official release schedule. As someone who watches the game industry struggle to deny and rebuke information that is so obvious to the rest of us, it was more than a little refreshing to have a major corporation go “Yeah, it’s a real leak, and it sucks. That said, it could be worse.” Leaks happen, and the industry at large could learn a thing or two from WotC about how to handle themselves when they do.

It is the year 1946, and the Nazis are an ever looming threat. As the Allies struggle against the overwhelming tide of fascism, I, Captain William Joseph Blazkowicz, am on a mission to cut the head off the snake. Lead by Wing Commander Fergus Reid and with aid from Private Probst Wyatt IIIand the rest of our squad, I storm the infamous Castle Wolfenstein in order to assassinate General Deathshead. As the source of the Nazis inexplicably advanced weaponry, ridding the world of his evil would cripple their efforts across the theater of war. At first, all goes well. Fergus’s leadership, and my prowess on the battlefield, allow us to make steady advances as our Allied forces distract the enemy.
This progress comes at a heavy price, as many of the others in our unit simply don’t make it. Ultimately, with just me, Fergus, and Wyatt remaining, Deathshead easily captures us. But simply killing us isn’t enough for the depraved sadist. He sees potential in my teammates, Fergus and Wyatt both, for use in his experiments. Unable to choose which one to dissect, this evil man forces me to make that choice for him, or he’ll execute all three of us on the spot. Having gotten to know and value the leadership of Commander Reid, and not having as much time to cultivate that same bond with Private Wyatt, I make the grim decision to spare my Commander, leaving an innocent young man to die a needless death.
In doing so, I have made a terrible mistake.

My first playthroughs of both Wolfenstein: The New Order, and it’s sequel, The New Colossus, were conducted under the timeline where Probst Wyatt III was sacrificed to the experiments conducted by General Deathshead, leaving Fergus Reid to take a leading role in the KreisauCircle, the resistance to the Nazi-controlled world government that would reign supreme in light of our failure to assassinate Deathshead. Now, several months after the conversation around The New Colossus ended, I find myself with not a lot coming out. This meant it was the perfect time to make a run of both games, but instead sacrificing Fergus to spare Wyatt, and see what I had missed as a result of my previous choice.
Had I known back when I made my first choice what I know now, I would never have sacrificed Wyatt. Out the two timelines, the one where he is spared is superior.
One of the ways in which this manifests, even in The New Order, is by the companion character each one of them adds to the resistance in their timelines. In Fergus’s timeline, a mathematician/philosopher named Tekla is recruited into the Kreisau Circle. She believes that there is no such thing as free will, that everything is a matter of cause and effect. Her cutscenes discuss this and other philosophical concepts like the conscience and the soul, whether or not they exist, and how/why that would matter. While these are fascinating questions that my inner philosophy student would love to discuss to no end, the answers aren’t particular relevant to the thematic content contained within either The New Order or its sequel.
In addition, when I sat down to plan out how I would write this piece, arguing in favor of the Wyatt timeline, I found myself completely unable to recall anything about Tekla or her character from my original run of Wolfenstein: The New Order. I didn’t even remember her name, relying on Google and YouTube to bring back what was lost in the confines of my mind. That, to me, spoke more about how I must have felt about her back then more than any recollection ever could.
But in the Wyatt timeline, she’s not there at all. Where Fergus’s leadership paves the way for a analyst like Tekla to join the group, Wyatt approaches things differently. Instead, his command brings the guitarist known as J (heavily implied to be this universe’s Jimi Hendrix) into the fold. In the interactions between him and Blazkowicz, he brings up points that much more directly relate to the story of a world in which the Nazis won World War 2 and conquered the earth. Namely, when BJ calls out that J has yet to actually take part in any of the fighting, he counters by pointing out the real life hypocrisy of the United States going to war against Nazi Germany when they were also participating in systemic oppression and racism against minorities. In a way, it even foreshadows the direction Machine Games would eventually take the sequel, moving to America and putting a sharper focus on that inherent systemic inequality.
It would be unfair to compare my personal memories of J with those of Tekla. Having just played through The New Order in the Wyatt timeline a week ago, of course they are still fresh. That said, when I speak with friends who saved Wyatt way back in their original game, and haven’t played since, they still talk about how incredible J is in all of his moments. On top of the aforementioned social commentary, J leaves his mark through the scene where he shares some hallucinogens with BJ and in his death, playing the Star-Spangled Banner at max volume as he is shot by a group of Nazi soldiers. While Tekla struggles to stay with players, J remains memorable long after the game is complete.
But beyond having a better supporting character, Wyatt himself is more compelling a character than Fergus. This is easier to talk about in The New Colossus, because that’s where the bigger divergences start to happen. Early on in the Fergus timeline, a Nazi general hacks off one of Fergus’s arms, which he later gets replaced with a robotic equivalent. Despite being attached to him, the arm has a mind of own, often sabotaging its alleged master. Much of the drama and comedy in the B-plot of this timeline comes from these antics. While I did chuckle more than a couple of times at Fergus’s expense, that subplot doesn’t go anywhere and he ends the story in much the same place he was when it began. It felt as if Machine Games didn’t know what they wanted to do with his character, which comes in stark contrast to Wyatt.
Unlike Fergus, who has always been comfortable taking the lead, Wyatt is both timid and easy-going. In The New Order, and the start of The New Colossus, he has difficulty coping with the fact that people in the resistance look to him for leadership and guidance. Once Caroline, the current head of the Kreisau Circle, is killed, Wyatt nearly has a panic attack as he realizes he’s the only one who could be reasonably expected to take charge. In this state, he goes through the belonging he salvaged from J, who had died in The New Order, and started partaking in his… secret stash. This not only does create some of the funniest moments in the game, but also one of the most touching.
Towards the end of The New Colossus, after the party scene, Wyatt goes missing. When Blazkowicz finds him, he’s in bad shape. Up until that point, we as players don’t have many chances to see what Wyatt was like before we first met him. But here, in the grip of the an acid trip, we start to get the full backstory of a young boy whose dad had planned for him to enter politics. A kid who, without a clear idea of what he wanted to do or what he was even good at, joined the military and got swept up in events largely beyond his control. It’s hard, at least for me, not to feel a pang of sympathy for the character.
Seeing Wyatt and what is clearly a low point makes what happens next all the sweeter. After seizing control of the Nazi’s global oversight apparatus and eliminating Frau Engel, the general in charge after General Deathshead is defeated in The New Order, the resistance comes together to broadcast their message to the American people. It’s here the Wyatt, this inexperienced and inept kid thrust into a position of authority, finally begins to take up the mantle everyone around him knew he was able to. He delivers a powerful speech on his own, clearly nervous but still comfortable enough to be a leader. (Credit also goes to his voice actor for nailing the perfect balance of emotions for that role.) Where Fergus goes nowhere (and even his version of the speech just has him flailing around at the tail end), Wyatt develops as a person.
Though Fergus can certainly get the job done, keeping the story going, he’s static. There’s nowhere for him to go as a character. Compared to him, Wyatt is a much more flawed and vulnerable human being. Instead of being a weakness, those flaws give him a weight and emotional heft than Fergus cannot hope to reach. They also afford him room to grow, culminating in a resounding resolution for his arc. If you, like me, sided with Fergus on your first run, you owe it to yourself to experience the Wyatt timeline in all its glory. And if you haven’t played the new Wolfenstein games at all, get on that.

At last, the Kingdom Hearts Primer comes to a close.

If you’re curious about Sam’s thoughts on Persona 3 and it’s extra epilogue, The Answer, you can check out his post on them here.

Remember, as of the time of this post, the reveals regarding Riku’s new outfit, Vanitas, and the new footage from the Monster’s Inc world had not happened. Considering how much time Sam and I have spent on this project, we were getting exhausted by the hype train. I still stand by what I said, in that I need to see Kingdom Hearts 3 in my hands before I believe it’s done, but you have to understand the context behind the statement.

This movie as a whole occupies a bizarre place. The fact that it’s part of “Final Chapter Prologue” implies there is some relevance to Kingdom Hearts 3, but I just don’t see it. Nothing here feels like it is of any consequence.

I’m left with a bizarre mixed of excitement at Kingdom Hearts 3, exhaustion from the Primer series, and confusion as to what Back Cover implies is in store for the franchise’s future.

We’re so close to truly, honestly finished out this Primer series. Just one more episode after this one.

I don’t actually have a whole lot to add here in the post-script. It’s almost sad that Back Cover is the last thing we talk about in this project. Not much of note happens, and the whole film comes across as milquetoast.

And here comes the finale of 0.2

At the time we recorded this video, the trailers that were release earlier this month had not yet come out. Nor was the announcement that the game’s release date would be formally revealed at E3 this year.

As much as those reveals did a lot to warm my heart to the idea of Kingdom Hearts 3 again, I still stand by my earlier statements that Kingdom Hearts 3’s hype train started to grow into a massive problem. Part of why the most recent reveals were so important was that they give off the impression that Kingdom Hearts 3 might actually be finished some time soon.

Sam and I also talked about the prospect of shorter, character-focused RPGs and how much we’d be willing to spend on them. I’d like to pose that question to you guys reading this as well:

  • Would you be interested in a shorter, 4-6 hour RPG?
  • How much would be willing to spend on it if you are?
Mostly, I want to know if you guys are as into that idea as Sam and I are.

(Credit to this artist for the font)
Ever since a friend(?) asked me to join him in campaigns across Dead Space 3, Resident Evil 5, and Resident Evil 6, I have tried to broaden my horizons and open up to the horror genre. Up until then, I had avoided them like the plague because I was (for lack of a better phrasing) afraid to be scared. With mixed results, I’ve dived into the previous Dead Space games, Amnesia, Outlast, and a couple of others. This is why Resident Evil 7: Biohazard caught my attention last year despite not caring too much for RE6. Game critics and personal friends of mine who played it sang its praises, raising more than a few eyebrows.

But instead of rushing out to buy it, I waited… I waited because Resident Evil 7 would serve as a flagship game for the virtual reality headset Sony had created for the PS4. This wasn’t just some mediocre extra mode that takes 5-10 minutes to play to stick some “VR Compatible” sticker on the box: The entire game was fully playable in VR from start to finish. Since I had already made plans to buy a PS VR headset, I decided to hold off on getting Resident Evil 7 until then. One Christmas and one playthrough later, and now I want to talk about the game, VR, and how they affected my opinions of each other.

Prior to Resident Evil 7, I had already begun using my VR headset on other games. I did not spend long with them: A few 20-minute sessions of Rez and an hour and a half with Thumper at most. Resident Evil 7 was just the first one I played that wasn’t deemed “VR Safe”, since those other two weren’t really known to induce motion sickness. Though I was aware of the possibility, it is one thing to hear about VR-induced motion sickness… and quite another to experience it first hand. After the first 20 minutes of playing with the headset on, I had an overwhelming nausea. Since I generally have a strong stomach, I thought it might have been something I ate, but it was growing increasingly clear that the game was the root cause. Thankfully, I wasn’t sick enough to induce vomiting. That said, the unpleasantness almost swore me off playing Resident Evil 7 in VR altogether.

A good night’s rest later, my stomach given enough time to settle, I resumed my run, only without the headset. After making some progress, I felt the urge to VR Mode another chance. “Maybe it was just a fluke,” I thought to myself. Admittedly, it took a little longer than the 20 minutes of the last session, and my symptoms weren’t as severe, but once again I found myself ejecting the headset off my face in the name of sweet relief and once again I found myself thinking I would never do this again, this time saying so on Twitter.

Fortunately in this case (and unfortunately in several others), I’m a stubborn fool when I want to be. Whether out of some misguided, macho notion that “I can’t possibly be so weak that a video game is making me ill”, a feeling that I couldn’t let the money spent on this VR headset go to waste, a sense that the third time might actually be the charm, or some combination of the three, I was compelled to make one last attempt to play this cursed game in VR. Only this time, nothing happened: I was no longer experiencing the ill effects of motion sickness. Those symptoms never came back for the duration of my playthrough, most of it with the headset on. I’m not saying that everyone will get magically cured of VR-sickness through sheer force of will, but it did take several play sessions before I was personally able to handle it.

After crossing that threshold, analyzing the other effects virtual reality had on my experience became a lot easier. The first thing that comes to mind is how the control and camera systems are modified for VR Mode. Obviously, the developers couldn’t map the control scheme in standard play to virtual reality without exacerbating the aforementioned motion sickness. Concessions needed to be made, and one such change is in the way the camera works. Since the headset can track cranial movement, players can simply move their head to look around the environment, crosshairs in the center of their view. To allow people (like me) to play while sitting, the camera can both be re-centered at anytime, or moved to the left or right in 30 degree increments by tilting the right analog stick.

When contrasted against the standard control scheme, this offers an intriguing trade-off. One can move their head to accurately hover the aiming reticle over a target, allowing for a level of precision that is simply not possible with a controller. In-game, this meant that while I was in VR, I was able to put off headshots consistently, rarely missing a shot except in dire circumstances. This doesn’t mean that I had too much difficulty aiming in normal play. But without the headset, there was a noticeable increase in wasted shots, where I either hit my enemies in less vulnerable body parts or missed altogether. Considering that Resident Evil 7 is a survival horror game where ammo is scarce and every shot counts, this made my life in the Baker house a lot safer.

Sadly, all boons come at some price, and where the headset improved my basic ability to point-and-shoot, it detracted from my ability to move about the space. As previously stated, in VR it is only possible to move the camera to the left or right in 30 degree increments. While roaming around a relatively safe area, this is hardly even noticeable and barely worth calling attention to. The drawbacks are more pronounced once players are thrown deeper into the action. In my run, this became clear early on during the confrontation with Jack Baker after the dinner scene. As you can see in this video, it’s a simple scene. The player merely needs to backtrack to the dining room, run passed Jack, grab the hatch key, and sneak under the house.

This exchange can be done easily in standard controls, but in VR this isn’t quite as straightforward. Notice in that short clip all of the times where the camera moves slightly to the left or right, orienting the player such that it’s easier to sprint around/passed Jack. These micro-movements aren’t as simple to perform in virtual reality. In this segment alone, I had to tilt both my head and the camera a great deal so that I could navigate this space without getting pummeled. Coincidentally, this was also where I got motion sick the 2nd time. I took off the headset to finish the scene and progress a little farther. It was remarkable how much easier it was without it. As the game granted me more weapons and options to fight back, this became less of an issue because I could fight back. Though the awkwardness never truly went away, it would be more accurate to say that I simply learned how to compensate for it.

What was most affecting about using the VR headset was the way in dramatically increased the sense of place. It’s a tired cliché, but the adage that the “immersiveness” of virtual reality is much easier to demonstrate than it will ever be to describe on paper is an apt one. Since I don’t have the resources to hand a headset and a copy of Resident Evil 7 to every single person reading, I will instead do as best a job I can explaining what it feels like.

In a mini-rant I wrote on Twitter, I described the helmet as a “sensory deprivation chamber”. While I’m not the first person to make that comparison, drowning out the outside world is as much as advantage as it is a hazard of VR. Lacking the ability to see or hear anything from outside the game brings sharp focus to the events occurring inside the game. I can’t speak for anyone else, but while I’m gaming I like to catch up on podcasts or watch a couple of videos from my YouTube queue. For horror games like Resident Evil 7, I try not to in order to preserve the game’s atmosphere, but I do occasionally slip into old habits while sorting through inventory or when I’m certain the game won’t be trying to unsettle me. When I’m stuck, I might even just go look for a walkthrough to figure out where I’m supposed to go. Needless to say, doing any of this is difficult with headphones piping the game’s sound directly into my ears and a headset streaming my character’s perspective directly into my eyes. With those barriers in place, it is impossible to perceive anything aside from the experience, drawing all of attention directly to the Baker House and the monsters within.

This focus created a bizarre intimacy with all the things that were trying to murder me. Being able to fully move my head and see with the eyes of Ethan, the protagonist, is certainly one aspect to what makes virtual reality so immersive, but another is simply the blurring of the fourth wall. I was still aware that I was just playing a game, especially since they was still a HUD and I could physically see that my “hands” were just free floating objects unbound to any form of in-game body. But in that space, there was no TV separating me from my in-game avatar. For all intent and purposes, it felt like I was transposed onto the main character. It wasn’t Ethan who was fighting for his life, it was me.

I could also tell that I was more affected by the oppressive sense of dread Resident Evil 7 was trying to evoke than I would have been without wearing that helmet. This is slightly embarrassing to admit, but when I play scary games, one of the ways I cope with the dread of what might try to attack me next is by trash talking. I can’t even begin to explain why, but insulting whatever monster or death trap I’m up against helps me not only to keep calm, but stay focused and figure out what I need to do. During my first playthrough of Amnesia: The Dark Descent, this is how I was able to face the infamous watermonster without losing my cool, and eventually figure out effective ways to outmaneuver it.

In the early game of Resident Evil 7, when the player is given limited means to fight back, much of what sustains the tension is that sense of dread. While I was playing normally, without the headset, my behavior was in line with what is described above. To “psyche myself up”, I hurled an untold number of insults and innuendos at the Baker family and the monsters they kept around their estate. I did not notice until I had taken the time to ponder my experiences, but while I was in virtual reality, that trash talk immediately ceased. It seems foolish to clam up because I was afraid that the immediate threat would hear me and come running. They are as artificial as any other monster from any other horror game, but the common sense to make that observation eluded me. Inside that headset, the illusion was great enough to pierce the veil of confidence I normally wear for games like this. Again, at no point was the fourth wall ever truly dissolved, but it blurred such that I no longer felt as “safe” as I would have when playing normally. That, more than anything, exemplifies how radical virtual reality can be.

While Resident Evil 7 definitely doesn’t require VR, it’s a great game to show off both what gives it its potential and what holds it back. After fighting through the motion sickness, and learning to adjust to the new control paradigm, I was able to get an amazing experience that I would have never been able to otherwise. VR probably won’t ever get more than a niche audience, but within that space there’s still a ton of potential. Having finished my trials at the Baker Estate, I’m more eager than ever to see what other applications, even outside of gaming, the technology has to offer.

Surprising everyone, we have a lot of good things to say about Kingdom Hearts in this episode.

At the end of this episode, we begin to talk about how A Fragmentary Passage is a solid, 2-4 character piece (that also shows off the technology that will be used in Kingdom Hearts 3). The fact that it is such a concise, yet mostly complete experience is a large part of what makes it so successful.

As much as I love RPGs, the commitment required to finish most of the games in that genre is a huge barrier, especially as I come into a part of my life where I generally don’t have to worry about being able to afford games. Persona 5 was one of my favorite games last year, but it’s not easy to recommend a 100+ hour game to somebody. And it’s especially not easy to dedicate the time to it.

Though it’s hardly a great example of the genre, stuff like this and Alpha Protocol shows that it is possible to make RPGs that players don’t have to spent months of their life playing. Undertale also did that only a few year ago. I’d love to see more RPGs so this route, if only for the selfish reason that it slides into my schedule more effortlessly.

Settle in, ladies and gentleman, because things are getting self-referential and existential.

It’s very ironic to talk about how people watch YouTube content podcast style when the footage for this “Let’s Play” got corrupted.

It feels strange to talk about YouTube and how to work around it’s many problems in the wake of all the recent controversies surrounding it. With the “adpocalypse”, the rise of YouTube criticism in video games, and the rest of the “YouTube culture”, it’s a subject that probably won’t go away anytime soon.

In a way, the whole reason I came up with the queue system in the first place was that the intended way to watch content on YouTube, to follow the recommended videos and keep watching through Autoplay, just didn’t fit into my schedule. I found myself annoyed at all of the great content I wanted to watch and missed out on. Thus, the queue was formed.

I know it’s weird, and I doubt many other people use systems like that, but it works for me.

Remember when I said we were done with the Kingdom Hearts and considered it closed?

Well, I lied….

It’s really painful to listen to how giddy we were to do a Let’s Play… knowing that the footage corrupted and we ended up doing a sudo-podcast anyway. After the incident with Watch Dogs, and the corrupted recording of our first Kingdom Hearts 1 Primer, we swore off ever re-recording something again. We also decided that we wouldn’t be able to recreate the magic that was this recording.

It’s also nice to not be as critical about this game as we have been to other Kingdom Hearts games. Without spoiling the upcoming episodes too much, we had a great time with this recording. We had some criticisms to be sure, but this was largely 2 hours of praise.

Lastly, kudos to Sam for taking the footage from Gamer’s Little Playground and meshing it with our audio to make a final piece that is still largely cohesive. This was quite an effort on his part, and I don’t want it to be overlooked.

So yeah, you asked for it, and we’ll deliver.

Ever since the advent of the internet, game designers have come up with a myriad of ways players can interact with and influence each other while in-game. From online shooters (both team-based and competitive), co-op campaigns, user-generated content, and even player messages ala Dark Souls, the network has become an increasingly valuable tool in the designer’s kit. Certain genres, like the MMO, would be impossible without such technology. That particular genre is I what want to focus on today, but not in a way you might expect.

What I mean by that is that I want to take a look at the MMORPG, through the lens of a franchise known as .hack (read: dot hack). For those of who aren’t aware, the .hack multimedia project first made its way to America in February 2003 with the animated series .hack//SIGN (read: dot hack sign), and a four part series of video games. This was later expanded on in 2006 with the .hack//GU trilogy and an accompanying anime called .hack//ROOTS, both taking place 7 years after the events of the quadrilogy. Taking place in an alternative universe where a computer virus destroyed all but one operating system and made hacking a capital offense worldwide, .hack details the adventures of various players of a fictional MMORPG called “The World”.

Most of the stories in this universe tend to focus on one character, and their circle of friends, as they investigate the mysterious circumstances wherein players are falling into a comatose state while in the middle of playing the game, with no reasonable medical explanation. While that’s the main focus, as a franchise set within an online game, it both implicitly and explicitly talks about the MMO genre and its evolution (since SIGN and the original four games take place in 2010, while GU and ROOTS take place in 2017). I want to examine these predictions and see how “correct” they were.


Let’s start with the backbone of any online game: interactions with other players. As many who who play MMOs and online games will often say, one of the biggest draws is the ability to meet and get to know people in an online space. More than anything else, these games are social spaces to either connect with new people or reunite with friends and family who have moved away or are otherwise difficult to stay in touch with. This obviously isn’t a universal truth, but it is a big factor in the genre’s popularity.

As someone who practically lives online, most of my social group fall into this category, where we play games (not necessarily MMOs, but the idea is the same) as a way to regularly keep in touch. We’re far from the only ones. Danny O’Dwyer on his video game documentary series NoClip, published a video in early December 2017 about “The Hillbillies of Grand Theft Auto Online”. Though it may not be the first thing that comes to mind when MMOs are brought up, the group this piece talks about was built almost entirely online. They’ve grown so close that they, and their families, gather together every year for an annual barbecue. The clan leader even went to the extraordinary lengths of buying a plane ticket for one member who was hesitant to drop that kind of money to meet a complete stranger they just met online.

In a real sense, .hack nails this perfectly in almost every sub-series. The storylines in .hack are strongly character-driven, focusing on the players much more than their actions within “The World”. This is partially why the anime .hack//SIGN received such mixed reception when it came out. Despite being set in a online world filled with warriors, wizards, and rogues adventuring together, much of the on-screen time is dedicated to players talking with each other, looking for answers as to why the character whose handle is “Tsukasa” is unable to log out of the game and pontificating as to how it must feel to be trapped inside the game. Even when the characters are shown to do more classically video game-y tasks like questing and level grinding, it serves more to give them a reason to hang out and chat with each other than as an action set-piece for the audience. While //ROOTS has more action than //SIGN did, it too was primarily centered around characters using “The World” as a meeting ground.

This focus on characters even translates to the video games as well. Although they are single-player RPGs, players of the .hack video games assume the role of players inside “The World”. Their party members are other users of this fictionalized MMORPG. While the plot in both the original four-part series and the GU trilogy is centrally focused on the main characters’ struggle to rescue personal friends who have been put into a coma while playing “The World”, they also give time for other, less critical adventures. In both games, it is fairly common to receive an email from someone in the protagonist’s online friend group to join them on a quest, just for fun. Most of the major character development occurs during these missions, as the cast takes the time to reflect on everything they’ve been through together. The way //GU protagonist Haseo talks to his friends Silabus and Gaspard during any random quest accurately captured how groups of my friends and I behave when we’re gaming together. While we’re all working towards complete the mission at hand, we mostly just talk about what’s been happening in all of our lives since the last play session. In both anime and games, .hack understands the value of the people one plays with.

On the other hand, one way I thought that .hack really missed the mark is how Player Versus Player interactions are handled. In almost every piece of .hack related media, “The World” has one of the most ill-conceived and ridiculous PvP systems I have ever heard of. While players are inside a town, they cannot be attacked by PKers (Player Killers). However, once outside of a town, it’s a complete free-for-all. Any player is allowed to initiate battle against any other player, regardless of whether or not the target agrees to the fight, and “PK” them.

This is understandable as a device in service to the story. It is far easier to instill a sense of drama in a scene if the character has upset another party and runs the risk of being ambushed while in the course of regular play. Further, fights can occur more organically if both parties don’t have to agree to one beforehand. Yet judging by how players act and react under this system, it is clearly a problem in “The World’s” fundamental design. The beginning of .hack//GU has protagonist Haseo get “PKed” on his very first day in the game, by two other players who pretended to want to teach him how to play.

This sets him up for an unhealthy attitude when engaging with “The World” in //ROOTS (which he also stars in), spending much of the early season afraid of getting PKed again if he ever lets his guard down, and in //GU, where he assassinates other PKers (becoming a PKKer, or Player Killer Killer), earning the title “Terror of Death”. Other, less traumatized players still feel the effects of this system through bullying and harassment in the vein of “Do as I say or you’ll get PKed” or “You’re friends with that guy, so I’ll PK you to upset him”. In universe, a PvP arena was created to curb these incidents, but the effect was minimal at best. Even if many moved to the arena for “honorable combat”, all the examples I listed above come from after the arena was established, so the issue persists.

I was eager to jump in and talk about how no designer would create a system like this, but as it turns out that’s not true. Doing some light research, it turns out that Ultima Online(UO), prior to the introduction of PvE servers in 2000, actually had the most logical extreme of this system. Nowhere was safe, and any rules were strictly enforced by the player base. As designer Raph Koster stated in a postmortem, the intent was to make heroism feel genuinely heroic by making villainy equally viable. In practice, it lead to… exactly what I describe from “The World” of .hack. Games like EVE Online and Star Citizen use similar mechanics, but in a sci-fi setting, and the stories from those games reflect that. In this sense, .hack can be said to model the very real effects that “open” PvP systems create.

But in lore, “The World” is a massively popular game that has “sold over 20 million copies worldwide”. All the games from our universe that have open PvP aren’t pulling those numbers. Obviously there will be inactive or unused accounts that factor into that “20 million copies” number (World of Warcraft reports to have over 100 million accounts, but a peak concurrent player base of about 12 million in Oct 2010), but it’s safe to assume that a good amount of those people are still playing by how there are in-game news stories about “The World”. By comparison, real MMOs with the open PvP policies depicted in .hack aren’t anywhere near that popular. As it turns out, while there is an appeal to this kind of system, it’s very niche.

So what do MMOs as wide-reaching as “The World” do with their PvP? First-off, many of them have set of minimum requirements that must be met before one can fight against other players. Final Fantasy XIV forces its users to achieve level 30 in at least one job class and complete a specific quest before they can engage. The level gating exists so that new users have to take the time to learn the basic mechanics of the game before fighting their peers, specifically negating the scenario where a high level player slaughters a newbie on their first session, like Haseo in .hack//GU.

In addition, most MMOs have separate servers dedicated to PvP, splitting the players who want to fight each other from the population who might not be as interested. While preventing abuse and harassment in an online population is an eternal struggle for game designers, separating the two populations is an obvious move that many popular MMOs use to curb the worst of it. In order to attack or be attacked by other players, one needs to opt into it, again preventing the aforementioned “newbie slaughter” and bullying problems depicted in .hack. Ultimately, while .hack technically has a PvP system similar to systems seen in real online games, is it unrealistic in the amount of players that would log into such a game. Were Haseo a real person playing a real MMO, there is a strong chance he would have canceled his account on the very first day.

The last point of comparison I want to make between real-world online gaming and “The World” of .hack is the use of real-world money to purchase virtual goods. Since the .hack// games were all single-player RPGs in the PS2-era, none of them ever broach this topic. Protagonists use the same in-game currency that the other characters use when buying, selling, and trading items, with no real-world money ever entering the equation. To get a feel for how the franchise thinks of using cold hard cash to buy virtual goods, we must turn to the anime .hack//ROOTS. In an episode titled “Violation”, a minor character whose handle is “Tohta” uncovers a ring of traders who have a near-monopoly on rare in-game items, using it to extort in-game merchants and players for real-world money to acquire these items, thus inflating their in-game cost. Tohta is able to acquire evidence of their wrongdoing, turning it over to CC Corp (the company that built the game), which permanently banned all of the real-world traders’ accounts.

This might not be all too illuminating in and of itself, but there are a number of conversations that take place in this episode that speak to the nature of applying real monetary value to items inside of an online game. Worth mentioning is that the character Tohta is role-playing as a merchant inside “The World”, and takes great pride in not only living up to his deals, but ensuring that the customer is treated fairly. Throughout the anime, he is depicted as a trustworthy individual, and the person to turn to when discussing matters of commerce. Before he hands over the evidence to authorities, he gives the traders the option to stop, stating that making trades with real money in an online game is “the same as being a drug dealer” because once they start spending real money to get the better gear, they’ll just keep coming back for more. Continuing with this, he claims that “obviously players will buy the best stuff with real money, and then get carried through the game without having any fun. [The traders] make them unhappy by selling them items.” In his view, if all a player is spending is in-game currency, at least they had to earn it by beating monsters or selling/trading to build up that resource, resulting in a sense of accomplishment finally being able to afford the item they really wanted.

While the subject of using real-world money in online games came into focus once more with the semi-recent controversies surrounding loot boxes, there has always been a market for it, regardless of whether or not it is officially supported. World of Warcraft(WoW)’s terms of service (last updated in 2012), expressly forbid the use of real-world currency to purchase any in-game items or help to clear a dungeon/raid. On the surface, it would seem that Blizzard holds this same stance regarding the integrity of the game.

At least, until one remembers that a few years ago they introduced the “WoW Token”. For $20, players can purchase WoW tokens, which can be redeemed for 30 days of free play without paying the subscription cost. Since a monthly subscription to WoW is $14.99, this sounds like a terrible deal. However, this token can be traded in-game for a price, essentially allowing players to trade a month’s subscription to the game for in-game gold. While Blizzard forbids the use of real-world currency in WoW for virtual goods and services, in-game gold is fair game. In practice, this means one can buy a WoW Token, sell it for gold, and use that in-game gold to pay for what they would have otherwise directly purchased. A quick look at the Battle.net store will reveal a number of items, from cosmetics to level boost and name changes, available for purchase as well. The attitude seems to be more one of “Don’t use real money to pay for WoW content, unless it’s through us.”

Blizzard is hardly alone in this. While WoW still uses a subscription fee passed a certain character level, most other MMOs, which have largely (but not completely) abandoned the subscription model of ages past, rely on similar purchases for extra revenue. Guild Wars 2 and Warframe both take advantage of this model to remain successful without asking for a monthly fee. I don’t fault .hack for not seeing this trend coming, since it’s from the early to mid 2000s, an era where MMOs were still getting off the ground. At the time, spending real money in virtual items was seen as a big deal: A sign that one was getting addicted to the game. Nowadays, it’s been largely legitimized, both for good and ill. The debate will rage on as to whether or not real-money traders are “the same as drug dealers” and ruin the experience, yet they aren’t met with the same scorn .hack seems to imply they do, so this is something the franchise gets wrong.

Where does that leave us? Well, the one thing .hack gets right, the way online games can connect people, is perhaps the most important aspect of MMOs. In that sense, the series is true to life. That said, the backdrop of “The World”, while somewhat reflecting the MMOs genre at the time, would have been more of a niche game. It would have a small dedicated audience, not the mass appeal seen in some of the more popular MMOs. Depending on the loyalty of the player base and the costs to keep the lights on, it could very well enjoy moderate success, but no more.

That doesn’t mean that the franchise is magically invalid for not duplicating popular genre contemporaries. The spirit of why people enjoy online gaming is captured beautifully in the stories told in this universe. Having recently gone through and experienced much of it again, many of these tales hold up well, even though they are over a decade old. There’s a timeless quality to “The World” and the players who inhabit it that one can’t quite shake off, and .hack will live on as one of my favorite franchises nobody has ever heard of.
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