In Far Cry 3 (Ubisoft Montreal, 2012) the player is introduced to a world where they conquer territories belonging to the “local tribe” (2) of the game’s setting, a fictional Polynesian island populated by an indigenous culture called Rakyats, which can be both hostile and friendly to the player character.
TVTROPES FAR CRY 3 SERIES
No videogame series has so casually portrayed aspects of imperialism in its game world and mechanics than Far Cry. (1) By tying the aspect of neutralizing hostiles with the conquering of territories within the game space as a requisite task for progress, such shooters not only reflect the imperialist drive to extend influence over geopolitical spaces through violence but they also rhetorically justify the imperial project.
![tvtropes far cry 3 tvtropes far cry 3](https://pics.esmemes.com/vg-cats-269-nerd-rage-thiら15-the-world-cyber-50579629.png)
Progress in the game is thus contingent upon violent behavior.
TVTROPES FAR CRY 3 FULL
Players unlock new areas of the game and narrative by slaughtering rooms full of enemies. The progression systems of shooters like Doom (id Software, 1993) and Medal of Honor (Danger Close Games, 2010) reward violence. In progressing through the levels of game play in the FPS, this violence is intimately linked to establishing control of geographic territories within the game world. By structuring game play around the killing of large numbers of enemies in order to survive, the genre uses what game scholar Ian Bogost (2007) calls procedural rhetoric, which is “the practice of using processes persuasively” (p. This genre lends itself well to narratives of imperialism because they are largely centered on violent conflict that often involves the players exploring game worlds that are populated by a disproportionately large number of enemies. The FPS is a popular videogame genre that puts the player in control of a first-person perspective with the central objective being generally to shoot at enemies on the screen through a reticle icon on the center of the screen. Postcolonial theorist Edward Said (1994) describes the culture practices of imperialism as affirming “both the primacy of geography and an ideology about control of territory” (p. The term imperialism is commonly used to refer to colonialist attempts to gain economic power through territorial expansion, often by using violent force directed at local inhabitants. It looks at the role the military-entertainment complex has played in the evolution of the FPS and how this has led to the proliferation of American military narratives into other games of that genre. This paper focuses on two highly popular FPS games, Far Cry 2 and Far Cry 3, and examines how elements of their game worlds and mechanics reinforce (and disrupt) imperialist narratives. Specifically, players develop a “heroic” narrative by exploring and conquering game spaces and neutralizing “savage, hostile” enemies. Imperialism in the Worlds and Mechanics of First-Person Shootersįirst-person shooters (FPSs) evoke a power fantasy that empowers players with both agency and choice, while problematically reproducing various aspects of imperialism.