Death of the Hero

& why modern games want you to be an NPC

We have felt it, and we have seen it. Yet only recently has the enormity of this issue really made itself known to me. Throughout my video game journey I have consistently taken the roles of individuals who “the fate of the world, rests on their shoulders.” From Cloud Strife, Solid Snake, Raziel, Lara Croft and James Bond, to the very real veterans of WWII, and larger-than-life personalities such as Tiger Woods and Tony Hawk. Today, we are inundated with blank-slates and create a character menus for avatars that likely wouldn’t last basic training, never mind a confrontation with the hordes of the apocalypse. We have gone from it could be no one but this specific person with this specific set of skills and experiences to it could be anyone, it could be you. And not in the Alan Moore Killing Joke “one bad day away” scenario, no. Much more sinister than that.