Returnal (PS5)
The Premise/Background.
The game, "Returnal" was released exclusively on the PlayStation 5 on 30th April of 21', then way later on the PC Windows Platform on 15th February 2023. Developed by "Housemarque", which is a relatively small studio, when compared Sony supported titles and developers that are published by Sony. Most known for their co-development on the console release/porting of "Angry Birds Trilogy"
The game is a 3d bullet-hell, rogue-like shooter. Similar to games like "Risk of rain 2". With the main character, Selene, a space explorer who "crash lands" on the forbidden planet called Atropos. Is tasked to find out how she keeps coming back to life after each death, with the very planet she is on being the mystery.
The Mythos.
The game, (luckily for me), draws many inspirations from Greek Mythology. The main character, who is half-Greek, and half-American, has the name, "Selene". Where she is the Goddess of the moon from the Greek Mythos.
From the interview with "THE - GAMER", marketing director, Mikael Haveri, was interviewed on what inspired the game and how it was shaped, molded, and developed. Greek mythology played a heavy role in shaping the world of Returnal, as well as classic shooters from the PlayStation 1 era, and their previous game, "Resogun". Lovecraft also played a big role in layering the atmosphere present in the game, but for now I will be focusing on the Greek Mythos rapidly present throughout.
This comparison can even be seen from her eye colour, where she has heterochromia, giving her one bright blue eye, and the other being darker. Which could be reaching, but represents the dark side of the moon. Alluding that she has a lot of baggage, but is still persistent enough to get through all that pain and horror she has gone through, and still has to deal with now.
The weave of Destiny.
The planet, Selene "crash lands" on is oddly named "Atropos". Atropos in Greek Mythos is apart of the Moirai, the three women whom embody destiny. Their responsibility is to ensure that both mortal and divine beings live out their lives as predetermined. Clotho spins the thread of life, Lachesis measures it, and Atropos cuts it, determining the manner in which life concludes. Or in other words, how it ends.
So it is pretty clear why the planet was name Atropos. As the planet ensures the cause and moments of each of Selene's deaths. In which she loses all of her losable collected currency, being "Obolites". As back in the Greek age, people believed when a person dies, they have to cross the river Styx in order to reach the underworld. But the Boatman requires a form of payment for the journey. So the dead would be burried with coins, but due to Selene losing all of her coins, she has to lose them in order to start the loop again.
The Helios.
Selene's ship, named Helios, the Greek god of the sun, and is the brother of Selene (the goddess). But from the story, I have gathered that in Returnal, it is implied that Helios could be the Selene's son.
Helios, in his radiant chariot, transports the Sun across the heavens daily, journeying from the east (Ethiopia) to the west (Hesperides). And in Returnal, he has been struck down by Atropos, forever the sun stopped and now her brother or mother (depending on the interpretations and endings you get), must now save him or repair the ship enough to escape.
The cosmic consequences of the carrier of hope (the sun) would impact the celestial order, as everything would be thrown into chaos, impacting gods, mortals, and the entire cosmos. That is why the game is so dark in its presentation, rarely any bright saturated colours in its surroundings, the light literally vanished and we only have glimpses of it in the game.
More visual designs and motifs can be seen in game of both Helios, and the planet Atropos. These characters are figuratively sized differently, the massive scale difference of the large beast of Atropos, to the quite insignificant small stature of Helios was intentionally done to play into the narrative of this hopeless fight that Selene has been trapped in, of which I will go in more depth in the next section.
The Mythos II
The game is a more realistic representation of the characters and aspects of the Greek myths, a more rather science-fiction tailored one instead. As it majorly takes a metaphorical interpretation, instead of literal, as players can just play the game for its mechanics and atmosphere and ignore any and all signs of the mythos in play.
But when applying semiotics, the characters in play, (Selene, Helios, and Atropos), are in their personalities, a more nuanced interpretation of these characters. They aren't literal as two of the three characters aren't even human, but they feel alive.
The feeling of the non-human ship and planet being a l i v e is the most interesting part. As the game takes the mythos and characters from Greek Mythology, and expands upon it, rather than living beings, these people are cosmic entities not to be interfered with. This game can be classified as a "Greek Tragedy", as the rogue-like genre of having to constantly die and repeat until you succeed, can be seen as such. This implies that Selene is being punished for her actions, with the planet ever changing to make sure that Selene can't or won't be able to eventually beat the surroundings through sheer trial and error.
What do I mean by being "punished"? Early on in the game, the planet, being alive and breathing, terraforms an almost perfect replica of Selene's house on Earth. Finding a "normal" looking key deep in the first area can unlock the house, more and more through out the game, it is heavily implied that Selene, when she was a child, was the cause of her mother's car crash.
This trauma carried onto her adulthood, from which either the planet is using this information as a way to punish her, or more loosely, that she was the cause of Helios crashing, and Atropos is just playing their part.
The Whole.
What would I take from this game onto my FMP? . . .
The concept and game mechanics of rogue-likes and rogue-lites is something I enjoy playing in my spare time, but how this game differs from most other games in its field of genre is the way it weaves the gameplay and story together. Of course there are some games that do combine gameplay and story together in the same genre, good examples like Hades, Enter the Gungeon, and Deadcells.
However in those games, when you die, you go back in time, or the main character can't die so keep persisting. The game's story and gameplay are intervened together, where you can see the past selves of your self dead, the mystery and allure of the planet bringing you back to life, and so on.
After Gameplay, the latter half I will be taking inspiration from is the atmosphere. As I really love the v i b r a n c e the game offers. With its bits and pieces of story unlocked through gameplay, the world ever changing with each run, enriching the overall gameplay experience. Stumbling upon one of your dead bodies gives the player a stark reminder of how prevalent the dark powers that run through the planet's environment.
Overall, I love what this game offers in terms of its mythos, but executing the imagery, scenery, and ambience, will be quite the difficult challenge I hope I can achieve pieces of. And from this short analysis, the one thing I can take away is how simple but effective just taking the outlines of a story is, and simply crafting your own story that can be intrepid as both an interpretation of a myth and your own tale.
Edge of Tomorrow (2014)
The Premise/Background.
The film, is set in the near future, where humanity is in a war with an alien race only known as the "mimics". The film is centred around to the character "Major William Cage", who is played by Tom Cruise, an officer who never soot foot in combat, is suddenly thrust into the suicidal battle that he was advertising for.
I wouldn't be looking at this piece of media if it was another blockbuster action flick, I am more interested in the way it handles the time-paradoxes. And to break it down easily, I am going to look at the film in three different angles. How the movie "gamifies" the story and concept of a time-loop, how the story deals with the main character's "atonement" with links to Greek tragedies, and overcoming unrelenting odds by breaking and overcoming human limits.
Gaming, Time Paradoxes and You
The majority of the film feels "gamified", as the way the time-loop works, is after dying or being perished, Cage goes back to his "game-save*". Which in this case, is him waking up after being dropped off in the military base, and being woken up by his current higher ranking officer. I quite like that we start here, a Deja vu experience for us, the audience, and more importantly the main character.
This time-loop is explained by Cage killing one of the sentinels, an alpha in this case. And the alien swarm that's all controlled by a single interconnected mind that's referred to as the "Omegas", rewinds time back to fix this error. But the reset happens at the same time as Cage dying in the process, which he then consumes and is chained into the alien network at the same time.
All of that is the catalyst of why Cage suddenly wakes up in the army, for multiple reasons. Making it easier for the viewers to understand the plot of the film, and an important point in time for the alien swarm's battle plan that has been set in motion.
Then the structure of the narrative is Cage learning the ropes of using his armour, weapons, combat, how he got here, what he has to do, who does he go to, and so on. The movie does not drag and has clear side and main objectives that it goes through easily. And eventually, the amount of repetition Bill has done greatly improves his skills in navigating his current situation.
We also start empathising slowly with Cage and his ambitions to stop the Alien race from taking over, but only after he has grown and matured through out his journey. Which goes into the second side of this triangle.
*(A game save, also known as a saved game, savefile, or sometimes called a save-state, is a digitally stored piece of data about the progress of a player in a video game)
Links to Greek Tragedies
On the second perspective we can look at, is how the film punishes Cage for his involvement in basically "selling war" to the masses. And just like in Greek Tragedies, they heavily feature themes of profound love, loss, power, human-divine relations and most importantly in this case for our tragic hero, Cage, is pride.
One can only imagine Sisyphus happy, as the story of him having to constantly push up a boulder, for it to fall down. Has stark similarities with the tragedy of Cage. But Sisyphus isn't afraid of constantly repeating his task, which the same can not be said for Cage. As his tragic flaw is that he starts as a coward, never set foot in war, yet happily will get paid for telling the common folk to grab a rifle and die in war.
And along with the never ending loop of being thrusted into battle constantly, he is evidently in his own personal hell. Cage is forced to relive this day on and on, as a punishment for his sleezy sins of advertising human citizens into the army. By showcasing how the "power-suits" can turn any regular guy into an unstoppable killing machine.
A slightly noteworthy point I found is that the film can also be seen as "Anti-War" propaganda. Most evident in the chaotic desert war zone, in which, Cage is thrusted into a war after his ship has been shot down. He can see all the random soldiers and their lives thrown into the frontline, being gone so easily. And makes him think for a bit about what his involvement is . . . And also the theme of war being never-ending, plays so thematically well into the time loop plot.
The symbolism in the name Cage is acutely suiting, as he has been forced to wear a mechanical body suit, (that cages the human inside). Which he has no training, just like in his marketing advertisements. And along with the time-loop that is narrowing and limited to try and explore options without dying or succumbing so easily, it is a perfect analogy for him being trapped in a jail cell, or more accurately, his own circle of hell.
However the film goes beyond being a "Greek Tragedy", as if the film did end with him giving up and the alien swarm taking over earth, it would be classified as so. But Cage's humanity, efforts, and sacrifices shine through to atone for his sins. Which goes on to the less pessimistic side
Overcoming Human Restraints
And finally on the more optimistic side of the triangle prism.
On the beach that the war is taking place in, Cage learning the ropes slowly, the audience, learn at the same pace as him, trying to unravel the mysterious supposed "super-power" he has. But after an encounter with the most decorated solider in the United Defence Force, Rita Vrataski, she was in the same situation Cage was in.
So to overcome this alien invasion, Vrataski told him to come meet her in his next loop. And after countless hours and days, and months repeating the same day over and over. He grows stronger, is an effective soldier, and is capable of almost any threat. But soon gives up by accepting his demise, and tries to live out his limited days with the woman he grew so attached to, while she has no idea who he really is. His answer being that he gave up, which he knows he has to overcome and find out an actual solution after a "fake vision" almost led him astray.
And soon, from his low point, he decided it was enough, and has to push beyond his limits to achieve greatness. A final act, an encounter almost leading to his death in Paris. Where he has to sacrifice for the greater good, by basically kamikazeing with the Omega, and neutralising the other Mimics in an emotionally and action packed showdown, that I enjoyed thoroughly.
Whic shows his self-resilence, and ability to put others before himself. The perpetual growth he has done in a "relatively" short amount of time, in comparison to other people, but for him, must have been centuries. Which showcases the ability for humans to grow past their less favoured sides, even if it takes forever. So sinners like Cage do have the ability to grow from their spoiled, rotten shells.
The Whole.
Now what aspects or fragments will I take from this movie?
One thing I like about this film, that I discussed and touched upon, was how the film felt like a video game. The beginning was the tutorial for Cage, trying to figure out how all of this works out, but as soon as he learns how it "sort of" works, the difficulty ramps up. He now has to pick up the pace, by learning how to be fit for combat, planning every possible outcome on how to defeat the "big bad", and so on. And after a mastery on his skills, which he accumulated thousands if not hundreds of thousands of hours of constant training. He loses that safety net of being able to "revive" himself, and now has to actually proof himself.
I basically want the player to go through that whole experience, of first learning how the game is played, then picking up useful skills, and when accumulating enough experience, they are then worthy to be challenged to "beat" the game in one go.
Additionally, if I can find a way to code it, I can have the player try to beat the game without dying, by removing their ability to ever respawn again, taking direct inspiration from the final act of the film. Increasing stakes, and if they die, game can not be started ever again, solidifying the stakes.
And then the other bits of smithereens I could take inspiration from, is the worldbuilding of the movie. The film slowly builds out its own mythos by not dumping its exposition in the few beginning minutes. But by showcasing various news broadcasts of whats happening in its world, Cage's invovlement by advertising to the masses, appearance of a few notable side characters. Of which I want to use on a much more less extreme level, obviously I will have a small intro to showcase what is at stake, and then the player will have to slowly piece together the story on their own, without being forced to know everything.
Overall, this cinematic action flick has given me enough creative ambitions to work and pass it onto my Final Major Project, and other future endeavours that I will have in the future. How simple and effective the story is, the amazing action set pieces, the continous building of tension and conflict that the character, Cage has to go through, etc. And now, with my two pieces of contextual analysis done, I will now start with the Pre-Production phase of my Final Major Project.
