Less than 30 minutes into Starfield, the game informed me that I was The Chosen One.
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Less than 30 minutes into Starfield, the game informed me that I was The Chosen One. Within an hour there were two factions I'd never even heard of begging me to join them. Some classic Bethesda storytelling right there
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Jason Lefkowitzreplied to Jason Lefkowitz last edited by
At least Mass Effect had the good sense to hold off on the big "you are The Chosen One" reveal until mid-game
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Jason Lefkowitzreplied to Jason Lefkowitz last edited by
Frankly I am just exhausted with Chosen Ones. Modern fiction is lousy with them. I'm up to my fucking ears in Chosen Ones
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@[email protected] My memory is hazy, but Mass Effect's "Chosen One" was due more to your character's actions in the plot rather than the circumstances of your birth, right?
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@[email protected] and in Cyberpunk, you're the "chosen one" partway through the game, but you do not want to be the chosen one and it's not going to end well for you and it's all due to your actions, not your birth, so to speak.
I think you just made me understand why I resonate more with those games than the Bethesda blah. -
@[email protected]
Elders: "You are the chosen one!"
you, the player character: "yay!"
Elders: throws your ass into the volcano -
@[email protected] "hey, starfielder. you're awake. you were caught at the field of stars, stealing horses, like that star thief over there..."
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FediThing 🏳️🌈replied to Jason Lefkowitz last edited by
"Chosen ones" tend to also take the drama out of it, make the narrative predictable as well as generic. It's more fun when the chosen one is unexpectedly killed and some crappy no-hopers try to fill in.
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Jason Lefkowitzreplied to FediThing 🏳️🌈 last edited by
@FediThing One of my all-time favorite moments in modern cinema is the first act of the movie EXECUTIVE DECISION, which begins with terrorists hijacking a 747, and introduces Steven Seagal as this badass commando who is going to board the plane and rescue the hostages while nerdy Kurt Russell tags along behind him, and then everything goes south and badass Steven Seagal gets sucked out of the plane, leaving nerdy Kurt Russell to figure out how to rescue the hostages by himself
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.vad//hakara🧭replied to Jason Lefkowitz last edited by
@jalefkowit In Starfield's defense (but only just a little bit) you immediately join a group of other chosen ones after that. So you're special for like, an hour, tops, and then you find out you're only as special as several other people, all of whom are smarter and richer than you.
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Hijueputa Gruñonreplied to Jason Lefkowitz last edited by
@jalefkowit If you think it's bad now, just wait till you read "The Bible".
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Jason Lefkowitzreplied to Hijueputa Gruñon last edited by
@hijueputagrunion I'm Jewish, so I'm mostly familiar with the parts of the Bible where becoming the Chosen One means your whole life is about to get completely wrecked
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@aud The best way I can explain the difference is that Bethesda's house style is power fantasy. The progression through a Bethesda game is a process of gaining mastery over different parts of the game world. By the end you are not just The Chosen One, but also the leader of every single guild/faction/whatever. The only thing stopping you from gaining that mastery is if you choose not to pursue it.
This leads to anemic stories, because your decisions never cost anything.
(This is what made New Vegas different -- Obsidian isn't as focused on power fantasy. They were willing to force you to make tradeoffs.)
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Jason Lefkowitzreplied to .vad//hakara🧭 last edited by
@vadhakara I've just barely gotten to the point where you meet the Constellation people, and the dialogue in that first meeting makes it sound like while there's a whole crew of them, only you and Barrett have had the artifact experience. So it felt like the game was trying to establish you as something a little more special than the rest of these folks. I'm not far enough in yet to know if that's just me mis-reading the plot, though, or if there's a twist later on that changes it.
(If there is, you don't have to tell me about it )