Remedy Entertainment's Worldbuilding Is Gaming's Best – CBR – Comic Book Resources

0
478

Worldbuilding can be a tricky affair, but few developers have the technique and the willingness to get weird that Remedy Entertainment possesses.
When it comes to telling a compelling narrative, video games often have a distinct advantage over other mediums. Aside from the ability to live out a story through interacting with its world and characters, games are also an excellent medium for worldbuilding. Given their often lengthy runtimes compared to many books and movies, big games are afforded the opportunity to not only tell stories through devices like environmental storytelling but also through collectibles and in-world items. When it comes to worldbuilding techniques, no other gaming company has excelled the way Remedy Entertainment has in games like Alan Wake and Control.
Whether it's through collectible recordings like Dead Space and BioShock, or in-game media like Fallout's radio stations, games can deliver a sense of believability and scope through a variety of avenues. Remedy Entertainment continues to combine them in engaging ways that not only make the worlds of its games feel all the more real and lived-in, but memorable to those who are able to experience them. Remedy utilizes these worlds to their best advantage by immersing players in them in unique and often strange ways.
RELATED: Is the Original Max Payne Trilogy Worth Playing in 2022?
Remedy's prowess in world-building began with its genre-defining hit, Max Payne. While the developer wanted to tell a noir story of loss and betrayal through the lens of its grizzled protagonist and narrator, the titular NYPD detective Max Payne, it also wanted to make the New York setting of the game feel as hopeless and downtrodden as its hero. One of the ways this was done was by providing players with a suite of in-world television shows that subtly created the surreal world of the game through their background noise.
Both Max Payne and its sequel Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne featured in-world television shows like the fictional Jane Austin parody Lords and Ladies, the serial killer thriller Address Unkown and the fan-favorite Adventures of Captain BaseBallBat-Boy. Players could freely choose to watch these satirical takes on American shows between gunfights. Captain BaseBallBat-Boy comics were strewn about the world, and players could even interact with Mafia hitman, Vinny Gognitti, a fanatic of the character.
Remedy took this style and evolved it further with its 2010 release, Alan Wake. This game tells a supernatural story about a famous writer trying to save his wife from a mysterious, evil entity. Alan Wake takes its premise and weaves it into the worldbuilding by allowing players to collect pages of Wake's upcoming novel, which not only narrate the story as it happens but paint the hero as his own unreliable narrator. On top of this, the game also features an in-world tv show called Night Springs, which is a nod to Twilight Zone's classic supernatural stories. Its paranormal bend adds to the dreamlike narrative of the game, making players want to question the mystery of Alan Wake's predicament.
RELATED: Max Payne 1 & 2 Remakes in the Works From Remedy, Rockstar
With 2019's Control, Remedy created a bizarre supernatural world that utilized all of its best worldbuilding techniques. Players take on the role of mysterious protagonist, Jesse Faden, who becomes trapped inside the X-Files-like organization dubbed the Federal Bureau of Control. She becomes its new director after her predecessor kills himself amidst an attack from an evil presence called The Hiss.
Control brilliantly uses its supernatural office building to reveal to players the nature of not only the Bureau itself, but its bizarre mission to explore and police supernatural phenomena. This is done through often hilarious in-world collectibles that over time reveal more and more mysteries to the player. One might be a redacted memo concerning a possessed refrigerator that must be stared at constantly to keep it benign. Another is a recording of an agent caught in a mirror world, who can only speak backwards.
Although Remedy doesn't necessarily reinvent the wheel when it comes to worldbuilding, it uses familiar tools in new and unique ways that stick in the minds of players. This commitment to detail and willingness to keep things weird provides for the invention of the company's signature settings. It also illustrates just how important every little detail can be when it comes to memorable storytelling.
Lucas has been a lifelong fan of video games and when he’s not playing them he is most likely thinking about them. Originally from Cincinnati, he moved to cloudy England so he’d have another excuse to not go outside. If you want to follow his thoughts on games, music and the Cincinnati Bengals you can follow him @LucasBlaine.

source