Originally published in print February 2021.

The town is a space so common in both our lives and video games. As such, it may sound strange for me to suggest examining what the portrayals of towns in video games actually say more broadly, but I think that we often overlook these ubiquitous elements of game design and in so doing, fail to see how these games can shape the way we view equivalent spaces in the real world.

Many old RPGs center around fantasy or sci-fi battles. In games such as old Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest titles the player usually commanded a small band of heroes, who would save the world by vanquishing monsters and other threats. These monsters often exclusively inhabited the wilderness however The town therefore serves as a landmark to chart the player’s progress and a place for much needed rest and relaxation. A place to heal and procure supplies for a lengthy venture through the next monster infested wilderness. The strongest feeling of relief I ever got from such a town was in Snowpoint City in Pokémon Diamond and Pearl (2007). This city comes at the end of the equal part hostile and wondrous route 216, the longest route in the game. After battling Pokémon on such a long route, with the falling snow slowing my Pokémon Trainer’s run to a crawl, the welcome sight of the Pokémon world’s excellent nationalised healthcare system (or the Pokémon Centre) was a relief. We need to be careful however, that we do not uncritically view this as solely a dramatic dichotomy. The positioning of nature as a hostile location and the town as a place where humans can walk around free of the stress of facing monsters has a political dimension, and an ecophobic one at that. While the politics of the nature, civilization dichotomy in games could warrant a book in and of itself, I think broadly it is simplistic to condemn games that feature hostility in nature, as stories in which humans have had to struggle against harsh landscapes are not inherently problematic. The issue is when a text portrays nature as a malicious force, out to get humans. To be brief I think the fact that Pokémon are equal part foe and friend, combined with the beauty of the landscape, establishes nature as something to be respected for both its beauty and power.

 It is also not totally representative to paint the town exclusively as a safe space. Some games seek to shatter the illusion of civilization as inviting. Earthbound (1995) is a coming of age game in which the child protagonists are exposed first hand to the seedy elements of the adult world. The game’s final boss Giygas was inspired, according to the game’s director Shigasato Itoi, by an experience where he walked into the wrong screen at the cinema as a child. The film he walked in on was Kenpei to Barabara Shibijin (1957), and what he saw was a traumatic scene that he interperated as a rape scene (though this film does not contain a rape scene). This scene clearly discomforted the 8 year old Itoi and as such his gothic RPG focuses on the loss of innocence. Many of the enemies are adults such as policemen and gangsters. These characters often roam the streets of the game’s various towns, breaking down the established barrier of safety that the player may have associated with places of civilization. When the player sees certain characters roaming the overworld it may sooner prompt a response of crossing the street rather than walking up and talking to every stranger as they would in most RPGs. This was actually a radical departure for the time, but since then more games have played with this concept of urban conflict such as, Batman Arkham City (BAC) (2011). In Arkham City the streets have been given over to gangs and super villains. This game displays this suburb of Gotham as a hotbed of urban decay and crime. At the beginning,  Bruce Wayne says in a speech to the media:

“Imprisoned behind these walls, gang leaders are fighting a bloody war in the middle of our once great city. Every inmate from Arkham Asylum and Blackgate Prison has been relocated to this facility. How can this be safe for the people of Gotham.”

This speech could have served as a jumping off point for an interesting critique of failing prison systems and social supports, but in the context of this game, I believe it presents a fundamentally ignorant perspective. In the previous game, Batman Arkham Asylum (2009), as well as the series of comics upon which the game is based, Arkham Asylum is rarely depicted as a functioning psychiatric hospital and much more often perpetuates the cycles of crime that plague Gotham City. In the above passage we see Bruce Wayne (Batman) the protagonist, present Arkham Asylum as preferable to this new reformed “super prison” as the game calls it. The reference to the crime existing in the heart of the city also suggests that Wayne’s fundamental problem with Arkham City is that it gives over control of part of the city to the crime. Creating a ghetto where gangs rule in close proximity to the less criminal central district. Wayne’s question of “How can this can be safe for the people of Gotham?” also turns the inmates into a dangerous ‘other’ and not fully fledged members of civil society. The player knows Wayne is Batman and that his preferred method of dealing with crime is punching it in the face (which constitutes most of the gameplay). In combination with his rhetoric suggests a “tough on crime” policy ala the kind employed by the War on Drugs. The game displays however, little awareness of the impact of such policies. The War on Drugs was a policy adopted under the Nixon administration in the US. According to the article ‘How the War on Drugs Damages Black Social Mobility’ by Jonathon Rothwell, saw incarceration rates of black males double between the 70s and 2014. This happened despite a decrease in the amount of arrests relating to violent crime. The result is that black people are 3.6 times more likely to be arrested for selling drugs, despite black adolescents being 32% less likely to sell drugs. It’s difficult to paint a full picture in this article, so I do encourage you to do your own reading. I use these statistics merely to illustrate that the overt allusions to real world justice by BAC invites comparisons to real world “tough on crime” policies, which rarely address the underlying reasons why people commit crimes, and often do not punish appropriately or productively. Batman may fight super villains, but BAC as a text equates them with real criminals. The problem is not that the game says we need to deal with crime, the problem is the strategy it endorses. 

The final point I wish to touch on is the town as a pulse that can indicate the health of the region. This has appeared in many roguelikes such as Steamworld Dig SWD (2013) and Hollow Knight (2017). In both of these games the towns of Tumbleton and Dirtmouth are places the player character is introduced to early on. In SWD, protagonist Rusty picks up where his uncle left off mining beneath the town and the wealth this brings to the town economy causes new shops to open and new people to move there. As a gameplay function it allows the player to buy new upgrades and wares. In the context of the narrative Rusty (an outsider) replaces the aging workforce and in so doing, brings new found prosperity to the town and its economy. Hollow Knight follows a similar structure but the game is far more interested in the exploration of the ancient kingdom beneaths history, as such Dirtmouth is more of a familiar stop off the player can make in between expeditions into the treacherous caves.

In summary, many classically styled Japanese RPGs show the town as a place to restore in between the perilous and wondrous adventures through wild spaces. Games like Earthbound disestablish this by exploring an urban environment where any interaction with an adult can be frightening and potentially violent. This violent urban environment has been explored in more recent games, but such an exploration must be cognisant of the causes of urban crime and effective solutions for addressing it which BAC fails to do. The town is also a microcosm of society and as such can be used as a barometer for the health of society as seen in SWD, or a monument to the value of an inclusive society ala BOTW. Ultimately towns and cities are collections of humans and as such their construction (philosophical and physical) is representative of our experience of society.