By the Waters of the Embrace: Video Games and Literature
On April 26th, 1937, at the height of the Spanish Civil War, fascist general Francisco Franco ordered the bombing of Guernica, a city held by Spanish Republic. The attack, carried out by German and Italian bombers, resulted in the deaths of approximately 1,000 Spanish civilians.
Just over a month later, Pablo Picasso unveiled Guernica at the 1937 World's Fair in Paris. Displayed within the Spanish Pavilion, the mural's striking horror inspired many to donate to war relief efforts.
Guernica by Pablo Picasso
Across the Atlantic Ocean, American author Stephen Vincent Benet reacted to Guernica's destruction in a different way. Already well-known for his poetry and short fiction, Benet penned "By the Waters of Babylon.” Appearing in the July 31 issue of The Saturday Evening Post, the story chronicles the journey of a young man who ventures into the ancient, bombed-out ruins of New York City. The story reflects Benet's anxiety about the horrors of war and the eventual fate of mankind. Though Benet did not live to see the invention of nuclear weapons, many readers interpret the story as a warning against nuclear war.
“The north and the west and the south are good hunting ground, but it is forbidden to go east. It is forbidden to go to any of the Dead Places except to search for metal and then he who touches the metal must be a priest or the son of a priest. Afterwards, both the man and the metal must be purified. ”
Eighty years have passed since the first printing of "By the Waters of Babylon," but the story remains influential in popular culture. Guerrilla Games' Horizon Zero Dawn contains many direct links to Benet's story. The protagonists in both stories are young and must go on a journey to uncover a great mystery. Their trials are steeped in a world irrevocably altered by apocalyptic war, the relics of the past acting as a source of fear, curiosity, and possible salvation.
“O Sun, a half of me regrets scribing these stories, for they inspire questions that can only be answered by yet more doomed expeditions. And yet, I must tell the tales, for what else remains of these poor and wretched men and women? If they sought riches, they found none to bring back—nothing save a handful of black silt, or a curiously-stamped piece of metal, a chunk of desert glass with shifting hue, or an odd smooth shell. I have kept all these things, to remind me of those who went in search of the forbidden, and paid for it dearly.
Reader, if you think yourself an adventurer—heed the warning in this old man’s collection of strange, small things, and go not into the Forbidden West! ”
One motif shared by both Horizon Zero Dawn and "By the Waters of Babylon" is exploration of the 'dead places' to understand the old world. Early on in Horizon Zero Dawn, the player takes a young Aloy through a long-abandoned research facility. The experience, in addition to teaching the game's control system, introduces the player to the story's greater mystery. It is the video game equivalent of a literary hook.
Horizon Zero Dawn is hardly the first video game to gain inspiration from the literary canon. Bioshock director Ken Levine cities Atlas Shrugged's John Galt as the basis for Andrew Ryan.
Other references to literature in video games are not explicitly stated by their creators but are crystal clear, nonetheless. Harlan Ellison's 1967 short story, "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream," ends with the last human on Earth under the control of the sadistic Allied Mastercomputer (AM). He is doomed to an eternity of AM's torture. Playing Valve's Portal series of video games, it is impossible not to spot the similarities.
“When I said “deadly neurotoxin,” the “deadly” was in massive sarcasm quotes. I could take a bath in this stuff. Put it on cereal, rub it right into my eyes. Honestly, it’s not deadly at all... to *me*. You, on the other hand, are going to find its deadliness... a lot less funny. ”
To her credit, GLaDOS has a much better sense of humor than AM.
When it comes to video games and literature, inspiration is a two-way street. From Halo to Mass Effect, video games have spawned dozens of tie-in novels. Additionally, well-known writers have made the transition to developing video games. The influential Half-Life series would not exist without the creativity of science fiction author Marc Laidlaw.
As video games continue to take water from the literary well, one must consider an important question: what makes a good video game adaptation of literary source material?
The answer exists within the games that have successfully adapted famous literature. Horizon Zero Dawn, for example, spends hours on world-building before the protagonist, Aloy, begins her quest. In comparison, Benet, focused on the protagonist's journey, leaves many questions about the story’s society up to readers' imaginations.
Horizon Zero Dawn also succeeds because it incorporates modern sensibilities and concerns - paranoia about runaway technological advancement and artificial intelligence. In that sense, Horizon Zero Dawn evolves Benet's 80-year-old anxieties. One can recognize the same evolution in Taro Okamoto's mural The Myth of Tomorrow, a modern 'retelling' of Picasso's Guernica.
The Myth of Tomorrow by Taro Okamoto
The Simpsons may been poking fun with the My Dinner With Andre video game, but the clip reveals one of the big pitfalls with direct adaptations. Outside of die-hard fans (in this case Martin), few people will play it.
Another strength of any successful video game adaptation is just that: it's an adaption. Horizon Zero Dawn and Bioshock have deep literary roots, but they can stand on their own as epic stories. Bioshock, unlike Atlas Shrugged, rightfully tears down the core tenets of Ayn Rand's Objectivist philosophy. Create Galt's Gulch outside of Rand's book and it will implode.
So what's wrong with direct adaptations? The problem should be obvious to anyone who has ever read a film novelization: you know how it's going to end. Foreknowledge kills tension. No tension kills player motivation. No player motivation kills sales.
On the flip side, someone who buys a video game that strays too far from its source material (whether it be a book/movie/tv show, etc.) is likely to view their transaction as a bait and switch. In fact, loose adaptations have led to some of the worst video games of all time.
In my opinion, the key for video game developers is to think of their craft like cooking. Inspiration (literary or otherwise) is a spice, something noticeable, something to appreciate, but never to overwhelm. Someone playing The Last of Us should be able to recognize the game's strong connection to the film Children of Men . However, that recognition should not linger, but lead players into uncharted territory.
I could go on into the debate of video games as literature, but that's another (long) article. For now, I'll leave the reader with a final thought, a message to the young men and women who hope to one day become the next Ken Levine, Neil Druckmann, or Marc Laidlaw:
Kids, pay attention in English class.