Really
When I wrote up yesterday’sbig dollop of Starfield infoI was expecting readers to focus on the stuff about housing, mechs and giant snake cults, in roughly that order. I wasn’t expecting a slight stir about the inability to complete the game without killing anyone. “Disappointing”, responded Youtuber Mike BurnFirein the QTs. Opined Mama Bedlam: “A fully pacifist run not existing (without mods) is a genuinely worrying sign to do with the flexibility of what the game can do”. Some players took the news as a brazen provocation. As ManyATrueNerd put it: “CHALLENGE. FUCKING. ACCEPTED.”
I shouldn’t have been surprised. There’s a rich history of pacifism in games of all stripes, with entire speedrunning scenes, schools of advanced play techniques and forum subcultures built around the act of beating the game without, you know, beating anybody up. People who hit the level cap inWorld of Warcraft: Shadowlands bypicking flowers for 18 days straight. People who modStardew Valleyso they canhug all the slimes. People who literally go through hell inSpelunkywithout raising their hand to a single soul. People whodo no-kill runs ofNinja bloody Gaiden.
In general, though, videogame peaceniks have often found Bethesda’s RPGs lacking, given their reputations as games that support any playstyle. After all, they might give you the option of talking your way through or sneaking past a few encounters, but Bethesda games tend to default to combat eventually. As the sage and exacting Derped Crusader put it, in response to our news story: “the past like 4 games, people have wanted the option People have been trying You’d think they’d take it to heart It physically cannot be that difficult”.
I’ve never tried to do a pacifist run, but I can see the appeal. Videogames are only getting more and more obsessed with combat, for all today’s spread of Cosy, Wholesome and/or Artgames in which you can pet the Radroach, etc; find a way to distance yourself from all that, and even the most routine gameworld can seem exotic.
There’s perhaps a comparison to draw with playing abandoned multiplayer shooters, where the combat SFX have outlived the player population. I remember jumping into Battlefield: Bad Company 2 after a long absence, and accidentally joining a session with no other players. Beyond the map perimeter, there was the thud of artillery and the whine of bouncing bullets. But within, total calm. I knew that map intimately, but with nobody around to suppress or flank me, I discovered it anew. Perhaps I’ll try to recreate that lull inStarfieldsomehow, rather than treating every other spacecraft I encounter like a warp-capable pinata.
Do you have any stories to share about virtual pacifism? This might be a good time to read aboutvideogame interpretations of Gandhi.
