You have recently announced that in your upcoming game, Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, a way to gain materials and money for character and ship upgrades will be through harpooning whales, sharks, and other large sea creatures. Let me start by congratulating you on the careful consideration that appears to have been taken on this relatively small mechanic within a much larger game, as evidenced in this video. However, I wish to present you with an extraordinary opportunity for such a mechanic which you may have overlooked. (Due to the nature of secrecy surrounding large video game releases, I realize you may already have considered the option that I am about to present to you, but I'd like to present this proposal before the game releases so that you might consider it before the game is in it's final form.)
As you probably gathered from the title of this post, my proposal is simply this: put Captain Ahab and Moby Dick in AC4. I believe this could provide a great gameplay experience, visual spectacle, and satisfactory narrative, as well as fit in quite nicely with the aesthetic and philosophy of both Black Flag and the Assassin's Creed series in general. In addition, it could open an interesting and satisfying inquiry into the relationship between Herman Melville's classic and modern video games as a vehicle for artistic expression.
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| Image from lazygamer.net |
The whaling aspect of the game is exciting because it's dangerous, tense, and the animals you face are large and powerful. Your developer videos already lead players to imagine hunting even larger animals like blue whales and great white sharks (see video below starting at 7:45):
With danger, tension, and ever-larger animals already being a focus, what better climax to this experience could there be than facing the single most infamous sea creature of all time: the white whale himself, Moby Dick?
The Pequod could be a ship just like the hundreds of others already floating around the open Caribbean world of AC4. When the Jackdaw approaches Ahab's ship, his call could be heard coming over the wind: "Ship ahoy! Have ye seen the White Whale?" The player could choose to stoop and converse with Ahab or ignore him (or attack him, I suppose). If the player does talk with him, it unlocks an open-world side mission to be on the lookout for the White Whale, which can only be unlocked to be discovered after a certain percentage of the main story is completed. When the White Whale is unlocked, the player can happen upon Ahab again if they go to the right spot on the map and catch the crew in the very act of chasing down the great Moby Dick. Again, the player could choose: ignore Ahab, help out, (or attack, but really, that would be quite diabolical at this point). Depending on how well-prepared and sure-handed the player is, perhaps he/she could change the course of literary history and save the Pequod. Or, alternatively, if you ignore Ahab at this moment, when you come back you can find the wreck of the Pequod and try and take on the whale on your own (no easy feat, to be sure).
Not only does Moby Dick fit in with the tone and setting of AC4, one of it's largest themes could be interestingly explored through an open-world game like Black Flag; namely, the cost of monomaniacal purpose. For many players, the pursuit of the white whale could become such a high priority that a major drive of their gameplay for 20+ hours could be dedicated to preparing for and seeking out the whale. Most likely, on the first attempt, the player will die--rendering all of that work a failure (for the brief moment a loading screen allows). In that brief moment, the player could feel everything Ahab felt in his final moments to some degree. Questions of meaning, time, satisfaction, power, failure, and futility would naturally rise in the player, forcing an easy identification with Ahab himself. Ahab could even give several side missions to the player before the hunt ever unlocks, taking Edward and his crew all over the map looking for this or that in preparation for the big day. Video games are perhaps better suited to transfer a taste for how truly driven Ahab was to get the whale, as a player has to perform actions and develop skills to get through the plot, but a reader has only to keep flipping the pages (which, with this book in particular, might not be so easy, really, but the point still stands).
I realize the side-story which I have outlined here might be impossible to completely implement by release, but I can wait for DLC. If you do nothing to include Moby Dick in Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, I believe you will have missed a huge opportunity to create an awesome climax of the whaling aspect of the game, as well as an exciting and driving supplemental narrative, great gameplay, awesome visual spectacle, and the chance to "play with history" like never before in any Assassin's Creed game--or, indeed, any game ever made.
In short, give us Ahab, and let us do what he never could. Let's change the course of literary history. Let's kill that beast.
All I can say is bravo. I'm glad that you took the opportunity to do this, and I'll pass it on in whatever ways I can :)
ReplyDeleteDude, this is pretty awesome. Thank you for putting in this appeal to Ubisoft. I think it is very important that they recognize the literary significance the AC does bring about in this decision to include whaling in the game, which you have pointed out. I think if video games had more literary connections like this, people might be inclined to read more than they currently do (after they beat the game of AC, of course). Great post, Paul.
ReplyDeleteThis may sound odd, but a lot of games really do have a ton of literary references. I really wouldn't be surprised at all if they had already planned to use Ahab and Moby Dick, but the point is nonetheless a good one: there is much that could be done to unite the different media formats.
DeleteOh man fighting whales in video games is just going to make the video game water fear worse.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if you guys remember but every single game made for the N64 that had any kind of water level seemed like it was designed to make children fear water. There were all kinds of things that wanted to eat you, and drowning was horrifying.
As video games get more realistic, I imagine that this will get worse.
I wonder about the intersection of video games and literature a lot. If you introduce a major character like Ahab, he (or Moby Dick) will almost take over, won't they? It's one thing to have a literary themed video world, but another to introduce a major character that comes stocked with a driving passion that either must fit largely into gameplay or be ignored.
ReplyDeleteAnd since you are articulate and informed about Ubisoft and these issues, how could you get your open letter to be opened by the powers that be at Ubisoft? Let's see some social discovery.
This series in particular has already cultivated several ways to introduce major historical figures as a sort of way point in the larger narrative to spice things up. I imagine they could do the same here. These games are pretty long, typically around 30 hours in one playthrough, so you could dedicate a good chunk of time to a side mission and still have it not take over. As far as getting it to the people, I've posted to the official G+ and Twitter of both the game and the company, but I'll try maybe finding specific people to tweet it to.
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