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A compelling aspect of the video game, and perhaps its most profound strength compared to other artistic mediums, is their unparalleled potential to evoke the player’s sympathy. At their greatest, games can totally immerse their players in the world and perspective of their characters. It’s a shame, then, that so many games undermine this quality by using the medium to exclusively tell tales of high adventure and wish-fulfilment fantasy. It’s rare to come across a title that rows against this prevalent tide, choosing to use this space of limitless potential to put the player in uncomfortable, compromising situations, rather than ~10hr ego stroking simulators.
The best examples of titles that utilise this potential tend to be in the independent vein. This War of Mine forces players to engage with the realities of modern warfare from a civilian perspective. Papers, Please subjects the player to the dehumanising effects of a totalitarian dictatorship, from the vantage point of a border security booth. The reason that these independent titles are allowed to take stylistic and mechanical risks in order to get their message across, is because they aren’t weighed down by the necessity for commercial success inherent in the mainstream market. In this light, Tyranny, the newest title from veteran RPG developers Obsidian Entertainment, is an impressive accomplishment. Working off the success of the studio’s last title – the Kickstarter-funded nostalgia-trip Pillars of Eternity – Tyranny engages with many of the key thematic problems of games like Papers, Please, though it does so in the mechanically conventional and (relatively) more commercially viable genre of the Combat-RPG.
Tyranny is set in a fantasy world that has been all-but conquered by a malevolent despot of incomparable power, Lord Kyros. The last vestige of hope is a single rebel stronghold, refusing to bend the knee to this godlike, tyrannical overlord. The big twist, in case you didn’t pick it up from the title, is that you’re on the bad guy’s side. Beginning with this upheaval of standard storytelling practice, Tyranny swiftly moves beyond the gimmick and into a richly textured fantasy world, populated by a range of well-realized characters, each finding their own place in this darkest-timeline universe.
The key similarity between Tyranny and Papers, Please is that, by each abandoning the traditional heroic journey game model, both games force the player into making decisions outside of their comfort zone. In Tyranny, you play a high-ranking adjudicator of the evil empress, assigned the task of responding to threats against her total authority. This breaks the standard model of “choice” in Western RPGs. Namely, the blunt binary of Paragon and Renegade options popularised by the Mass Effect series. Rather than simply choosing, at each major plotpoint, to act as a saintly do-gooder or an amoral bastard, in Tyranny you have to negotiate your actions within a situation that is, for the most part, entirely beyond your control.
The first mission is a great example of this. You are ordered to resolve the final battle against the rebellion in favour of Kyros’ forces within eight days. If you fail to complete this task within the allotted time, the consequences are made abundantly clear: Kyros will obliterate the entire region and all of its inhabitants, including you. From the off, whether they choose to play a noble soul tarnished by cruel times or a blood-thirsty maniac, the player immediately feels their freedom of choice hampered by forces far beyond their control. Player agency in the game is still central, whether they choose to ally with the game’s various factions in their political games or turn on the great Lord herself, but these choices are practically informed by the obstructions inherent in the game’s compromised universe, and in that they gain a sense of purpose and meaning rarely seen in mainstream games.
The result of this strong beginning is a game which offers rich storytelling and immersive world-building in an unconventional environment. On the mechanical side, the game is serviceable if less than spectacular. Tyranny works off the same engine as Pillars of Eternity, and does little to hide it. Innovations on the previous title include a surprisingly robust spell-crafting system and a combat system focused on small-scale, high-damage conflicts over strategic buff/nerf balancing matches. However, for the most part the combat falls in line with the standards set by Pillars: slow-paced, methodical management of ability cool-downs and unit position, relying heavily on the pause/unpause mechanic for particularly tricky fights.
This mode of play will soon grow tiresome to anyone that isn’t a hardcore acolyte of old-school isometric RPGs. This is exacerbated by the game’s sluggish second act, hampered by a lack of enemy diversity for a game of its scope. The same can be said for the game’s initially promising world; past the opening segments, the game’s 25hr playtime begins to drag somewhat, never lacking in lore and detail but consistently failing to make that secondary material relevant to the events at hand. This culminates in a lackluster sequel-building conclusion, which can make the time spent getting there feel unjustly rewarded.
These are significant issues with the game, stemming from the studio’s lack of scale and funding compared to recent AAA titles such as The Witcher III, the new gold-standard of highly-polished Fantasy RPGs. However, the unique essence of Tyranny shines through these flaws, and makes the title a worthwhile investment. It is, in the end, a game about playing the baddie that goes further than simply offering you the opportunity to act like a mindless, violent dickhead in a power-fantasy setting. In building a rich context for the player to interact with, and against, at the very least the player is forced to act like a somewhat more considerate dickhead.
