Is this game supposed to be satire?

[Malidictus]

So, after nearly completing Ghost Recon: Wildlands, I'm starting to get progressively more angry at the game's writing. I don't know if this is a Tom Clancy thing, an UbiSoft thing or what, but the game is full of American jingoism so rampant as to be borderline offensive. I say "borderline" because the game seems to be well aware of this. The heroes (i.e. "you" and your supporting characters) are depicted as violent amoral meatheads who respond with "I love my job" at the tail end of a massive firefight where they just gunned down 50 Bolivians, respond with "Ho-rah!" when given orders and default to "That's above my pay grade." whenever the ruin lives and devastated infrastructure they leave in their wake is called into question. The villains, by contrast, are depicted much more even-handedly. Yes, they're cold-hearted murderers involved in some heinous acts (human trafficking, genocide, shocking levels of violence), but they're also shown to operate on a certain code of honour, typically defending their families and almost always working to build their own nation. They're definitely not good guys, but their leaders seem aware of the horrors they're committing, not really claiming to be good people.

I get the impression the writers were aware they're making horrible xenophobic crap, so they went all-out with it ala the Starship Troopers movie. It would just help if my own character weren't such a massive ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, if you'll pardon my language. So here I am conducting casual racketeering. A chemical company is involved with the Santa Blanca cartel, supplying them with chemicals for cocaine production. I show up, wearing my American boxer shorts on the outside and demand they stop. The owner explains that not only is the Cartel the only reason he's in business, but they're also going to kill him if he stops. My character's response is along the lines of "Nice oil pumps you have there. Shame if something were to happen to them." So I go around blowing up oil pumps, tanking a company and leaving hundreds if not thousands of people out of a job. The owner obviously relents. "Just know - when they come to kill me, my life will be on your head." My character's response? "I can live with that." MURICA, @#$%! YEAH!

And before you think I'm specifically bashing on the US, the game itself does it. After having killed literally thousands of people, murdered my way through cartel and police alike and singlehandedly reduced Bolivia's industry into a smouldering ruin, I end up saving the family of one of the Cartel lieutenants. The boss had them kidnapped to keep him in line. His son mouths off to my CIA handler, about how Americans are ruining Bolivia and only bring death and destruction, to which she replies "I'm sick of this anti-American ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥t!" That's a direct quote. Lady, YOU are the reason for those sentiments. The kid was absolutely right. But of course my character suffers from chronic rectal-cranial inversion, so she's also complaining. "Ungrateful punk! Doesn't he realise we just saved his life?" Well excuse me, princess! After YOU put his life in danger and YOU ruined his father and YOU carved a bloody path of destruction through his homeland with all the self-awareness of a child, I think the kid doesn't exactly have a lot to thank you for.

I just... Is this satire? Because I shudder to think who could actually take the presentation in this game at face value. I played through the entirety of Saints Row 3 and 4, and I never did anything even remotely as heinous as I've done in Wildlands, and that's with me randomly running over pedestrians for giggles. And yet, it seems deliberate. The game constantly - CONSTANTLY - brings the Americans' amoral behaviour and outright war crimes into focus and presents them with villains who actually make legitimate points and have plenty of redeeming traits of their own, for being genocidal human-trafficking scum. Moreover, the worst of the atrocities are back-loaded onto high-difficulty zones that the player will naturally visit towards the end of the game. As such, the player starts out seemingly fighting for truth, justice and the American way, opposing irredeemable monsters and stopping horrible crimes. As the game progresses, however, the player's actions grow worse and worse while the villains' plight grows more and more sympathetic. Which, frankly, is a little unfair to dump onto the player in a game with literally no moral choices anywhere in it. Maybe it wouldn't feel so unfair if my character offered some kind of contrast against the establishment, but nope! The player character is a caricature of everything "the rest of the world" hates about America, and seemingly deliberately so.

I don't know what to make of this game...

*edit*
For those joining late, I do actually know what to make of the game, having had a pretty significant discussion in this very thread. To try and make a long story short, I'm not sure the game is intentional satire, but it does offer a complex story, giving plenty of depth to all of its characters and striking a decidedly "grey morality" stance. It was refreshing to see a modern military story with some amount of depth and thought put into it - it made me think, at the very least, and that's more than I can say for most of its peers.

[DeveN]

TL DR

[SpawnTarget]

Wow, I`m glad I moved the voice slider to 0 after about an hour of listening to bad jokes from the AI while playing coop, we are trying to finish a mission and AI is on our channel telling jokes and making other comments and they are not even with us, why would I want to listen to that,
The Radio OFF button also made me very happy lol.

[WinterGale]

OP, I remember when I first started the game my character's dialogue and attitudes towards cartel members were sympathetic. I remember this one time when the ghosts were talking about how these sicarios probably had no choice - its either join the cartel or die. As the game progressed, you and your squad started becoming ambivalent towards your enemies. Towards the middle of the game, their attitude, and to a certain extent you the player, starts becoming more and more indifferent until it finally blows over to the point that they no longer care who dies.

I think that is the whole point of the story of Wildlands. Those who fight monsters run the risk of becoming monsters themselves. Besides, the ghosts only went to bolivia after an American DEA agent was killed so that rules out the possibility that their motives for dismantling the cartel is altruistic.

The ghosts were ordered to dismantle the cartel by any means possible, and that includes doing things that might be considered morally questionable. Bowman, however, might have already been influenced the violence that was gripping Bolivia considering how long she stayed there.

There are no good guys in this game, IMHO. They're all bad guys or at least walking the fine line between good and bad - the cartel for their sadistic streak and wanton slaughter; the ghosts and Bowman for their indifference.

TL;DR
The ghosts started out wanting to make a difference, as the game steadily progressed and they just wanted to get over it by any means necessary.

[Malidictus]

Origineel geplaatst door WinterGale:

The ghosts started out wanting to make a difference, as the game steadily progressed and they just wanted to get over it by any means necessary.

Right, and that's what makes the writing good, as I said. It's not as one-sided as I'd feared... Though it can be at times. We're already knee-deep in spoilers at this point so I might as well hint at the ending - there IS a "good" ending and a "bad" ending to the game, though they aren't labelled as such. One you get for finishing the game normally, one you get for finishing the game having destabilised the Cartel fully (removed all four of Sueno's lieutenants). The Bad ending has Bowman flip out and shoot Sueno then goes to prison, completely unrepentant, the Good ending has her arrest Sueno and put him under witness protection while still being an insufferable ♥♥♥♥♥.

It's kind of disappointing to see her walk in the "good" ending, but I still like the sense of morality at the end. Bad ending you take the law into your own hands and murder people, good ending you follow the rule of law and try to save people. It even has that vibe of "I know he's going to be back to his old tricks eventually, and I'll be waiting." Really, it's the character of Karen Bowman that I utterly despise by this point, and I get the impression this was by design. The overal morality of the game seems to be "Don't become the monsters you hunt." Doubly so when you find all of Ricky Sandoval's files, which I REALLY don't want to spoil.

Suffice it to say that the game's narrative paints a pretty clear picture where everyone is evil. The Sueno and his men are violent deranged murderers, the US Ghosts are violent, arrogant murderers, both following their own unethical agendas, both lay claim to the moral high ground. It's pretty well told, all things considered.

[Paulie]

El Sueno did kill sandoval though, no denying that. I actually did those missions somewhat expecting sandoval to be alive.

[Paulie]

in the end you gotta ask yourself, what's better for bolivia and the world? a Drug Cartel (santa blanca, Duh :P), or a socialist dictatorship (Pac Katari)? if you picked the first, exit to desktop. If you picked the second, see it through to the end.

[Malidictus]

Origineel geplaatst door Paulie:

El Sueno did kill sandoval though, no denying that. I actually did those missions somewhat expecting sandoval to be alive.

I actually expected Ricky to be alive, having been turned by the Cartel. I made that gues fairly early on, when he was expressing sympathy for the Cartel. Having rock bottom expectations of the writing based on the awful voice acting, I presumed they were going for a cliche storyline and that was the hint. Turns out it was something a lot more interesting - I'm glad I was wrong.

Funny bit about that, though - the Ghosts aren't in Bolivia to break the Cartel or bring freedom or anything of the sort. They're here over the US embassy bombing, and all of the "liberation" business with the rebels is just a means of getting to El Sueno. That's why the Ricky Sandoval storyline is such an interesting aspect of the game.

Origineel geplaatst door Paulie:

in the end you gotta ask yourself, what's better for bolivia and the world? a Drug Cartel (santa blanca, Duh :P), or a socialist dictatorship (Pac Katari)? if you picked the first, exit to desktop. If you picked the second, see it through to the end.

I just think it's funny to play as US soldiers supporting a communist rebellion against a capitalist regime using terror tactics :) I thing it was El Way describing the way the Katari try to run the mines which leads me to describe them as "communist" - they're trying to employ collectives. I describe Santa Blanca as a capitalist regime because their propaganda radio has a whole segment defending and promoting the "a free market," plus Sueno runs the cartel like a business. And I describe our actions as terror tactis, given that one storyline mission has us shoot up a casino with the express purpose of scaring away tourists and driving the local boss out of business. Again - I'm not criticisng here, mostly pointing out that the core storyline is one of deliberate absurdity.

As to who's better? Neither. The Katari are murderous idiots, the Santa Blanca are murderous thugs, Unidad are jackbooted thugs. And we, the Ghosts? We come across like sanctimonious hypocrites. The writing does a good job of showing the narrative from everyone's perspective by giving us their arguments for why what they're doing is right for Bolivia, but it eventually makes it pretty clear that they're all inherently flawed. Yes, including us. That's actually a nice bit of subversion. Players are naturally inclined to "root for" whatever side the game puts them on, but our side is just as guilty as all of the others. The player characters' justifications may more closely align with those of the target audience, but the game leaves no room for doubt - our justifications are just as flimsy as anyone elses.

It took me a while to realise that this is a story with no good guys - just as it takes the US soldiers a while to come to the same conclusion themselves. For me, it was around about where I kicked down the door of a daycare center, children screaming all around, to strongarm an innocent civilian as a means of getting to her father. That's the sort of visual storytelling you can't really argue with. Its intent is clear as day, and I'm glad I left it till right at the end of the game. It made for a much better character arc overall.

[Mile pro Libertate]

Origineel geplaatst door jsocfrog:

as a proud american veteran.. mr OP.. thanks for your opinion, but opinions are like ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, everyone has one and they all stink! when it comes to the might of the American Military, 3 things are true
1) if you ♥♥♥♥ with us, we will kill you
2) if we kill you, gallows humor will always ensue (see the jokes in GRW)
3) after we kill you, we will use you as propaganda for the next ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ we hunt! (see osama bin laden and company)

we dont give a flying ♥♥♥♥ what the world thinks of what we do, we do what we need to do, when we need to do it under the definitions handed us by arm chair politicians who dont know the first ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ thing about how to get any job done as none of them have held a real job in 20+yrs(with the exception of the honorable Senator Thom Cotton).

you ♥♥♥♥ with us... we hunt you down... plain and simple... we installed Sadam Hussein in the 70s to counter the Iranian poltical counter culture that led to the overthrow of the Shah of Iran, Saddam went rogue, used chemical weapons against the Kurds numerous times in the 80s with little countering by the US govt due to our need for him to keep the heat on Iran(kinda like how we stood behind Mubarak in Egypt and Assad in Syria to stabilize things (using their own methods, clearly not humane... but efffective). in the 90s, we pushed Iraq out of Kuwait and laid down a set of demands that clearly Saddam had no intentions of complying to and after we elected a president with balls following the womanizeind sleezebag that Bill Clinton was, we took Saddam to task for his dealings.

we put him in power, we took his ass out! thats what we do! as this is not a forum for all things political... i'll simply offer a hearty ♥♥♥♥ you and be on my way!

Don't forget one of the most crucial parts of all of this: funding for said military and overseas operations is compulsory.

The CIA and U.S. military don't sell subscriptions, policies or contracts to customers, nor do they ask for donations.

Funding comes from taxes. American taxpayers subsidized both the buildup and takedown of Saddam...whether they agreed with it or not. And there is no accounting at the end to show "how your money was spent" with any specifics, like a receipt or bill of sale.

Politicians are often derided by military (and justifiably so) for tying the hands of soldiers once they are committed; they also are derided for cutting funding, or allocating funds to the wrong purposes.

But regardless, at the end of the day it is the political apparatus that ensures there is 1) a monopoly on force and 2) coercive funding mechanism. This ensures the military's continued existence and also aggrandizes and gives sustenance to those within it, irrespective of the institution's performance, I.e. whether they win a war or not.

So while military-political relations often come out looking antagonistic, and this is true at some levels, these levels are fairly superficial.

At its core and most fundamental levels, the relationship is symbiotic.

So in those circumstances, it's very easy to have a "we'll do what we want and if you don't like it then ♥♥♥♥ you" approach because the military doesn't have to worry about its "customers" (i.e. the tax paying citizens) giving their money to another outfit.

The U.S. military is the only game in town, so to speak, for "defense," and that is a direct consequence of the political arrangement and the nation state system, not a consequence of the military necessarily being the best at what it does, or being preferred over competitors, because competition is simply illegal.

But in countries where you have a semblance of open entry into the business of providing defense of citizens' lives and property, you get developments like what we are seeing in South Africa, where private firms' security personnel are outnumbering the state military and police, have tactical and doctrinal parity, and are even approaching logistical and technological parity:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vx-lRV3p3PY

So giving people choices as to where to put their money makes an absolutely huge, fundamental difference.

PS: And this is not to speak of the fact that such a large number of politicians and agency heads are former or retired military.

It also is to neglect bringing in the industry and capital relationships forged amongst military, political and corporate personalities, e.g. like when the top general responsible for deciding if Stryker should get the green light or not ends up on General Dynamics Land Systems board after he retires from the Army, and also with owning a portfolio with large amount of stock in the GDLS subsidiary that makes the proprietary 105 ammo for the special GD gun that the MGS utilizes.

[[FOX]Schnurx]

Na, it's not supposed to be satire. Its's supposed to rile up stupid "activist" kids, who mistake ranting about video games and incorrect language for courage.

[Mile pro Libertate]

Origineel geplaatst door FOXSchnurx:

Na, it's not supposed to be satire. Its's supposed to rile up stupid "activist" kids, who mistake ranting about video games and incorrect language for courage.

If that is what it's supposed to accomplish, that actually would make it satire.

[Samad Al-Hyade]

There is no jingoism or xenophobia on display in the game. None.

[Malidictus]

Origineel geplaatst door Mile pro Libertate:

Origineel geplaatst door FOXSchnurx:

Na, it's not supposed to be satire. Its's supposed to rile up stupid "activist" kids, who mistake ranting about video games and incorrect language for courage.

If that is what it's supposed to accomplish, that actually would make it satire.

Pretty much this. Wildlands' narrative manages to be bitingly critical of all parties and all characters involved, just in different ways. That my retelling of events in the game as they happened upset a number of people is I think more evidence that the game is going for a satirical tone, and I don't think it's accidental. Hostile Waters: Anetus Rising is accidental satire bordering on propaganda. Wildlands takes the piss out of its own narrative far too often, far too deliberately and far too extensively for that to be accidental. I don't know if the writers specifically wanted to upset people, but they did a fairly good job of highlighting the inherent hypocrisy of the situation well enough, which will always end up upsetting people with set beliefs on the matter.

Origineel geplaatst door Space Ghost:

There is no jingoism or xenophobia on display in the game. None.

There's plenty of both on display in the game, but it's acknowledged and often lampshaded whenever it comes up. The entire narrative is told from the perspective of a US military unit which at least starts out convinced that they're helping Bolivia with their actions, but are increasingly confronted with the destructive consequences of their actions as the story progresses. At the end of almost every zone, they're presented with an argument for the Cartel that the story ensures is both earnest and compelling, while giving the Ghosts only superficial justifications like "They must have made a choice to be in this situation." or "There must be another way to get clean water." or the ever popular "That's above my pay grade."

Wildlands isn't subtle about the setting it's building. Right from the start, you're put in contact with aggressive, violent rebels and asked to rescue one of their leaders that another leader already previous sold out. Yeah - Katari sold out what's-his-name, the guy in the first mission. Even as the game sets you up to kill two absolute monsters, it still goes out of its way to try and tug at your heartstrings. You have the tape from Ricky Sandoval pondering whether they're truly evil or just psychotic and you have that final conversation about them wanting to have a child. At first it seems like an easy choice - they're evil torturers, kill them. But it keeps happening. Bowman gives you a briefing about how the boss of the region is completely irredeemably evil, but then you start finding evidence explaining their backstory, you find a sympathetic tape from Ricky Sandoval and - if you end up capturing the boss in question - end up in a conversation with a three-dimensional, real-seeming person far removed from the caricature you were initially briefed on.

I don't think Wildlands the game is jingoist or xenophobic. I do believe the Ghosts - especially Karen Bowman - are, however, and intentionally so. The story is making a point of giving you a seemingly heroic, altruistic world-view and slowly unravelling it through your own character's actions and reactions until you're "no better than the Cartel" in your character's own words, and this after multiple other people have told you the same and been rejected out of hand. It's easy to look past this across the first few occasions, but I don't think it's possible to ignore it the whole way through, especially if you go for the "alternate" ending which requires doing all the storyline missions including the two for Ricky Sandoval.

[JS]

You guys are reading way too much into this game.
Just accept that it's a low budget, half baked story to give you a reason to be sneaking around ghosting dudes with your mates.
It's like the plot in a prono.

I don't think there's any subtle messaging or anything behind the plot, it's just plain bad and slapped together on a whim.

[Azoun]

Its just a fun game to play with friends, and besides you cant ♥♥♥♥♥ all about how evil america is, and the wake of destruction throughout virtual belivia american soldiers perform in a fake game lol. Leave social justise and virtue signaling on twitter where it belongs. And if you want to get techincal you are working with bolivian rebels, doing what they want to do themselves but lack the skills to do.

[Panic Fire]

Origineel geplaatst door EL SUPER BEASTO:

He was a glorified military consultant to Ubisoft and lincensed his name to this and the SC series, that's all. He never wrote a plot, not a single word, for any one of the Tom Clancy games. He did not make a single decision in regard to the games either, and after the first one Ubi bought the rights to use his name as a marketing ploy only. He wrote books, good ones, not video game plots.

Tom Clancy with a friend of his created, designed, and wrote the orginal Rainbow Six game. He was present and one of the main design forces behind the Original Rainbow Six game based off of his book. He was also on hand for Rogue Spear and several other games not based off his works. Ubisoft aquired his game company around 2001 and the first game released was Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon.