Will Defending the Homefront Mean Being Anti-Asian?

Kaos Studios' Homefront is due to release Q1 2011.

In a digital game market flooded with military shooters, Kaos Studios’ Homefront might just stand out.  As a gamer, I look forward to playing something different from a stilted campaign and the standard team deathmatch in multiplayer.  As a game researcher, however, I wonder if a strong, character-driven campaign might raise storytelling in this medium to a higher level while simultaneously engendering unwarranted animosity toward Asians in general and Koreans in particular.  Now you might think that is a stretch, but it seems that many of the needed elements are already in place.

If the title Homefront doesn’t ring a bell, you can check out the information on wikipedia and a brief interview with Kaos Studios head Dave Votypka. In the piece Votypka said he and his team looked to Half Life 2 for inspiration. Regular readers of this blog know HL2 is one of my all-time favorite shooters. HL2 resonated with me because I cared about the characters, particularly Eli and Alyx Vance.  If Homefront can make me care about its characters, then I might just come to hate their enemies. That’s the problem. Yes, we can debate the likelihood of a Korean invasion all day, but the real danger here is that making a connection with Americans under the heel of a brutal foreign power may very well cause hatred for the enemy. In addition, there is also the risk that some gamers may begin to agree with positive representations of the good guys (the Americans) while agreeing with the negative framing of the bad guys (the Koreans). After all, it is only natural that we promote and support positive portrayals of those we identify with (known as the in-group) while at the same time harboring negative perceptions of those not in our group (the out-group).

North Korean solder in Homefront

Now in-groups and out-groups won’t really matter all that much if the single-player campaign is simply about herding the player from large battle to next while killing as many enemy soldiers as possible. Those faceless, generic enemies could be Koreans, terrorists, Covenant, Geth, whatever.  It makes no difference.  That is exactly what you will find in most games: enemies that try to keep the player from his/her goal, but it’s just business (the business of winning). But if I can revisit HL2 for a moment, I really don’t like the oppressive Combine.  Not only do they threaten “people” I care about but the setting developer Valve created was quite convincing and thus I decided to immerse myself in it.

A Combine soldier from Half Life 2.

Can the same thing happen with an occupied United States? Kaos brought in former CIA field operative Tae Kim to add authenticity of the invasion scenario.  Add to that noted screenwriter John Milius (Red Dawn, The Hunt for Red October, Clear and Present Danger) and you have all the elements for an engrossing story. In fact, the assault has already started.  Early promotional images of Homefront typically have the enemy soldiers towering over the camera; the viewer has to look up at the occupier, who is the authority. From the beginning we are made to see the invader as large and intimidating. When you compare that to images of the Combine from HL2 you will see the propoganda machine from the world of Homefront already engaged and doings its best to imitate the atmosphere of a masterpiece.

Of course there are readers who will dismiss this as nothing more than entertainment.

The Other in charge.

Those who support that point of view will argue Homefront is simply fiction.  My response would be that even digital games carry certain messages embedded in their content.  One of those messages here is that a nation and a people most Americans barely know or understand has been written into this game as a merciless enemy who now sits on our shore. While all known intelligence suggests the North Koreans are in no shape to mount such an invasion, because they are (to us) so mysterious, can we really know what they are thinking and planning?  We believe they are aggressive (look at the recent artillery attack on South Korea) and we know they have nuclear ambitions.  What else are they capable of?  They are the classic “other.” It is too easy to demonize and hate that which is other.  Fear and oppression are often-times the consequences of categorizing groups we don’t care to know as “other.”  The phrase yellow peril is not used that much anymore; it has since been supplanted by fears of communism and terrorism, but all that can quickly change.  A triple-A release like Homefront can expose millions of Americans to a hostile Korea. It also happens that the upcoming Operation Flashpoint: Red River features possible conflict between the United States and China in Tajikistan. However Red River is a niche shooter for those who love realistic tactical military games. Homefront has broader appeal by far and the from the looks of reaction so far should steer clear of the outrage surrounding Six Days in Fallujah and Medal of Honor. Those games centered around present US conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Homefront represents a fictional war. To be more precise, Homefront presents a fictional conflict between the United States and Korea and is therefore more acceptable to the American public than those other two games.  However it also embodies cultural conflict with the last cold war enemy, which is also dangerous, albeit in a different way.

A Response to “Is Death In Games Cheap?”

I read a wonderful article by Richard Clark in Gamasutra.  “Is Death In Games Cheap” took an engaging look at how video games handle death and I enjoyed every bit of it.  I do want to expanded, however, on the last section of his opinion piece titled “The Most Powerful Death is Not Our Own.”  He writes there that games do not trivialize death.  I’m not sure I completely agree.

Clark correctly points out that the deaths which really matter in video games are those of non-playable characters (NPCs).  He uses Mass Effect 2 as his example.  Anyone who has read my posts knows how much I love that game and how it speaks to the Human Condition.  However the use of a player’s choices to dictate if a character lives or dies is but one option game writers can use to make us care about an NPC’s death.

Writers can also develop an NPC’s character to the point where we care enough to miss him or her.  To this day, I still feel sad when I think about the death of Eli Vance at the end of Half Life 2 Episode 2.  I cared about him and his daughter Ali and I hated how the game ended with his death, knowing I would have to wait until Episode 3 to find out how Ali will respond to his passing. I ask myself why I liked him so much and I believe it is because he helped me flush out my character in the game, Gordon Freeman. Since Freeman never spoke, I needed the words and actions of others to help me connect with my character. In helping me to get to know myself (Gordon) I got to know him as well.  Eli and Ali Vance allowed me move past Gordon being simply two hands and a gun.

A third way game writers can make us care about a character’s death is to attach him or her to another NPC we care about. While I interacted with Eli Vance, I only got to know Maria Santiago through the flashbacks of her husband,  Dominic. Through his painful search for her I found myself hoping they would be reunited.  I remember playing Gears of War 2 with a friend online and having to pause when Dominic finally found Maria.  Their agonizing reunion also caused me anguish and I realized that all my rooting for their happiness was an exercise in futility.  I never got to know her, but one of the reasons I look forward to Gears 3 is to see if Dominic can find peace now that she is gone.

These characters are the exception to the notion that video games do indeed trivialize death.  Do a few wonderful exceptions mean the whole medium takes a more serious stance on death?  I don’t think so. I’ve probably seen and caused a hundred thousand deaths over the years and I could care less about most of them. I still love Clark’s analysis even if I disagree with his conclusion but at the same time I find it sad that game writers and researchers spend so much time wrestling with a 40-year old medium that is still, for the most part, trying to figure out how to tell a good story.  With death, we have the one thing that makes us all equal being used as a tool for a “re-do” in gaming.  In single-player games, it is a weakness in narrative. In multi-player death is simply a pause in the action.

There is hope however.  Clark himself points out with his final words that all is not lost.  Video games can provide a richer view of death. Further still, one of the comments to his piece notes how death can also be the goal of a game and not just a simple annoyance.  The writer of that post called the idea brilliant. In truth it is a fascinating idea and perhaps as video game narrative evolves someone will be bold enough to embrace such a view.  In the meantime, I will enjoy gems like Mass Effect 2 and I will keep waiting for Half Life 2 Episode 3.