As discussed previously, the emergence of psychologically complex "literally me" figures in film resonates due to an increasing sense of societal isolation, especially amongst younger demographics. YetPatient Zero for this phenomenon can be traced back to video games – open sandbox worlds and RPGs allowing players to effectively "become" the outsider avatars on screen.
Solid Snake, Arthur Morgan, nameless RPG heroes…the gaming landscape provides unlimited opportunities to walk in the boots of flawed, memorable characters. The levels of agency, customization, and choice afforded in modern games strengthens this vicarious connection. Empathy abounds.
But with such power comes responsibility. As the lines blur between media consumption and personal projection, players must tangle with the darker aspects of their psyche externalized onscreen. The gamer‘s journey intertwines irrevocably with the antihero‘s own.
The Stoic Badass
Consider Solid Snake of the long-running Metal Gear Solid series – special forces operator turned spy, gruff and deadly but with heart firmly in the right place. A man of duty who questions troubling orders from shadowy headquarters.
This archetype will sound familiar by now – the competent warrior adrift in an era with no place for his skillset, asked to conduct covert operations rife with moral compromise. Like Taxi Driver‘s Travis Bickle, The Driver, and other "literally me" cinema figures discussed previously, Snake channels that alienation into stoic perseverance and lethality despite impossible odds, traumatic injuries, and betrayal from allies.
Players admire and assume Snake‘s skin because in gaming terms, he‘s the consummate wish fulfillment. The lone badass dispensing justice behind enemy lines, influencing world events through action rather than empty rhetoric. An icon perfectly calibrated for an audience bred on Schwarzenegger, Stallone, Willis, and Eastwood‘s cinematic heroes. Snake‘s muscles offer bulwark from feelings of helplessness.
This mythic masculinity empowers, but reformulating the action genre into interactive gameplay invites added introspection. Stepping into Snake‘s boots forces weighing global consequences where there are no easy answers. The grander drama ultimately centers on warriors rendered obsolete by the ceaseless march of technology and progress.
Just as Annihilation‘s Defense embodied male identity shattered and Area X represented societal dissolution, Snake‘s saga shows how even the strongest find traditional roles outdated amidst chaos. Without empathy and soul searching, stoic strength becomes its own prison where vulnerability signifies defeat instead of humanity.
Unforgiven Sinners
Similarly, Rockstar Games blockbuster Red Dead Redemption 2 casts players as grizzled outlaw Arthur Morgan amidst the death throes of the Wild West circa 1899. Civilization‘s encroaching tendrils destabilize everything Morgan once understood – his gunslinger gang slowly torn apart by infighting as federal agents sap their strength.
While Snake‘s turmoil unfurls on the global stage, Morgan‘s conflict remains intimate and local as he questions the violent life he‘s led, tries making amends before tuberculosis claims his life. As with Fight Club‘s Tyler Durden railing against the impotence of modernity, Morgan represents pushback against his era‘s closing frontier.
Cultural critic Edward Smith probes protagonists like Morgan, placing them in the lineage of Man With No Name antiheroes popularized by Clint Eastwood‘s 1960s spaghetti westerns:
"These men appear in stories set on the margins of civilization and as such embody the kind of stoic individualism that dies when societies become modern, complex and effete."
Yet crucially, redemption remains possible for Morgan despite his venal deeds over a lifetime of robbery and murder. Players steer moral choices where glimmers of humanity emerge from nihilism. Critic Steve Haske describes a gameplay structure granting flexibility between good and evil as:
"…the lens to Arthur’s inner self. Being able to choose how I interacted with the world made me feel as though I was the one roleplaying Arthur."
This narrative agency stands as a keystone difference from traditional cinema. Instead of observing Travis Bickle‘s warped worldview, gamers actively participate in Arthur Morgan‘s path to potential absolution. The gunslinger‘s fate intertwines with their own burgeoning morality.
The Ties That Mod
Beyond predefined characters like Solid Snake and Arthur Morgan, games also enable blank slate avatars fully fleshed by players themselves. Consider Skyrim, Fallout, and Cyberpunk 2077 – open worlds set amidst post-apocalyptic wastelands or futuristic dystopias rife for self-projection.
These RPGs cast the player as the ultimate outsider – an unknown prisoner, vault-dweller, or mercenary entering societies ravaged by violence, lawlessness, and full collapse of authority. How one navigates brutality versus morality falls completely upon individual choice.
Yet modding communities that create custom content for games like Skyrim reveal is how players utilize this freedom for further self-expression. Critic Richard Moss explains:
"Mods…not only serve to make games function better as entertainments, but also provide spaces for…constructing identity and making meaning."
In other words, customized weapons, gear, follower characters, and quest lines reflect aspirational values. Modders reconfigure game sandboxes to better represent missing pieces of themselves.
Consider mods that let players adopt children, build families, mental health coping mechanisms, or spiritual rituals otherwise absent from combat-centric games. Accessibility options open gameplay to disabled demographics otherwise excluded. Queer and ethnically diverse character models push back against homogeneous designs.
This flowering insight echoes the heart of "literally me" cinema appeal – finding empowered agency by remaking art until it mirrors our hidden depths and impossible yearnings. Where studios won‘t represent, modders fill the void.
The Sum of Our Pixels
Overall by offering stronger audience participation than traditional cinema, video games provide unparalled conduits for "literally me"bonding. Players steer characters down narrative forks, assume alternate identities, battle enemies physical or ideological, face moral dilemmas, and ultimately witness the cause-effect ripples of choices beyond simplistic good-evil binaries.
This extracts a heavier psychological toll compared to passive film viewership. The Kino Corner video essayist noted darker outsider cinema serves as a cultural steam valve – "…a way for men to vent their frustrations and violent urges in a safe manner.” But within participatory gaming spaces, that cathartic release valve leaks inward.
Because whether following established genre conventions or breaking edgewise into the unknown, video game design philosophy implicitly asks pivotal questions – "Who are you? What would you do here? How far would you go?"
Answers emerge pixel by pixel with each decision point, moral quandary, death and respawn. Our truth accretes mission by mission as we walk shame in Arthur Morgan‘s boots towards grace or damn Daniel Plainview further into oil-blackened hell.
This tension explains pushback against violence in games as a dangerous amplifier rather than harmless escapism. Incarnating outsider avatars immerses in their worldview far more intimately than watching Travis Bickle‘s escalations unfold passively from cinema seats. The risk grows of losing one‘s way navigating the maze of morality systems.
Thankfully with such risk comes reward should players embrace exploring their virtual shadow selves constructively. The affective heuristic of choice → consequence → meaning shapes life-applicable wisdom. Stoic virtue. Empathy towards those on society‘s fringes. Where we plant seeds of imagination directs the growth looping back to reality.
Seeds of Destruction
That same mirroring phenomenon operates inversely for multiplayer game spaces fostering vicious behavior. Because just as cinema‘s outsider antiheroes channel dissent against society‘s bounds, digital worlds frequently become arenas literally enacting hostility without restraint.
This surfaces infamously in endemic toxicity from online gamers towards marginalized demographics including women, people of color, and LGBTQ groups. Data suggests nearly 75% of players face regular harassment including doxxing and violent threats. This nudges an already largely white, male player base towards paranoid reactionary stances from imagined persecution.
Of course correlation and causation remain debatable regarding media‘s influence on developing psyches and worldviews. But numerous analyses including Patrick Markey‘s "Moral Combat" highlight that immersive choice-driven gameplay correlates higher with real world aggression more so than passive violent film viewership alone.
Specifically Markey suggests the idea of "complete catastrophisation" as linked to game design:
"The thrill comes from the idea that these worlds create the illusion of having complete control over situations that have horrible consequences.”
We see resonance again with Fight Club‘s primal carnage once freed from societal restraint. Yet in multiplayer spheres dominated by competitive young men, limited moderation means digital locations easily becoome hotbeds for extremism rebranded performatively as fun guild names e.g BoysBrigade1488 and such – seeds planted in fertile ground.
This calls for urgent redress from developers. Because the same outsider isolation driving generations toward radicalization online also produces the verydark urges multiplayer spheres activate dangerously. The roots intertwine. Disenfranchisement drives gamers towards mediated communities granting charismatic strongmen authoritarian control.
The solutions require openness and soul searching from all sides. Greater accountability paired with empathy, seeking common understanding. Digital worlds playable by all without exclusion or threats loom essential for healthy bonding across difference to avoid cycles of harm.
For those doubting the importance, consider recent data showing up to 93% of young men fall under sway of alt-right views specifically by age 21 before eventually shifting perspective later in life. The damage along the way leaves deep scarring. Our shared future depends greatly on shepherding boys toward constructive masculine ideals. This crisis resolution likely transpires first pixels through game spaces.
Leveling Up Together
In conclusion, video games offer uniquely immersive spaces for bonding deeply with "literally me" characters compared to traditional cinema viewership. But such great agency power demands equally accountability in positive direction.
On the constructive end, choice-driven interactivity builds better understanding of outsider psyches beyond stereotypes, fueled by creativity of inclusive modding. Done right, stepping into heroic boots or walking miles in villainous shoes cultivates wisdom. We plant seeds towards compassion through play.
The parallel risk of fragmentation endures, however – solace in game spaces further isolating people from real connection. Righteous battle behind screens inhibiting personal growth. Tribalism germinated digitally yields only bitterness in the offline world.
As major vectors of enculturation for young generations, competitive gaming and immersive heroic storytelling offer tremendous power for worldview imprinting beyind mere entertainment. Their most fervent fans sense this intuitively through passionate identification with onscreen avatars. Through Lara Croft, Sonic, Mario, Snake and now Morgan, we learn how to navigate our ever complex world.
Things fall apart. Centers fail to hold. Social mores crumble and reform in endless cycles. And yet here perseveres our outsider media to guide us through the ruins back home again each time. The hero‘s journey so far remains our own, but we need not walk alone.
The controllers compel our hands. Let wisdom guide them.