Larian’s Swen Vincke Talks Pitfalls of Politics and Ethics in Videogames

In a lenghty post on his personal blog written with lead writer Jan, Larian’s Swen Vincke has explained the studio’s approach to the political and ethical quandaries present in Divinity: Dragon Commander. Oh, and they’ve demonstrated as much through a new “political” trailer:

Here’s a snip from the blog post:

These characters speak plainly. They speak forcefully. They hammer home their viewpoint, often eschewing all nuance. In their own exaggerated manner they bring to bear their opinions, and even though it should go without saying, we’re saying this anyway: this doesn’t mean we necessarily agree with their opinions at all.

This is important to keep in mind, because by creating characters that often exceed individualism only to become certain ‘˜types’, we noticed that their opinion regarding various political statements were amplified to such an extent that they became quite frankly shocking.

What we also discovered though, and this is something we considered important as designers, is that it made players sit back and think about what decision they should make. Because the decisions you make aren’t simply ethical ones. Dragon Commander remains a game and decisions influence gameplay. That means that what you consider to be ‘˜the right thing to do’ may not bring you the rewards you’d have liked.

You take on the role of an emperor after all, and if you were really to command an empire, how long would it take you before your ethics would take a backseat to more Machiavellian concerns? Compare it to conveniently ignoring injustice in a particular country, say, because the natural resource deals you have going on there are just too good to pass up. It is easy to say such choices are reprehensible, but a lot of us live in societies in which our political overlords condone such actions, and indeed our quality of life may depend on it. We just don’t quite like to talk about it.

In Dragon Commander, as a commander in chief, you are confronted with problems and opportunities that may lead you to making decisions that in real life you would never even contemplate. And yet you may well make them anyway, because they will give you the edge you were looking for. You’re trying to win a war in this game, and it’s a lot harder to live up to personal standards when all around you the enemy is closing in.