Visual Dissonance

GTFO is a four-player co-op FPS.  It's also extremely difficult.  The tagline for the game is "work together or die together," but based on personal experience working as a team can still end in disaster.  There are, of course, ways to limit the risk.  Creating choke points, going stealthy, or simply avoiding places inconsequential to the mission are some methods that can be employed.  However, this particular blogpost isn't about all that.  Instead, I want to indulge in a bit of introspection by comparing GTFO to another title.  It's a little game about danger, darkness and dwarves...

Deep Rock Galactic has an uncanny number of similarities to GTFO.  Like that game, it is a four-player co-op FPS.  Also like GTFO, each mission consists of delving into a procedurally-generated subterranean maze of poorly illuminated tunnels and chambers with the express goal of completing a specific objective.  If I had to point out a big difference between the two, it would be the visuals.  GTFO is a very gloomy looking game.  Player characters have realistic physical proportions (not to mention psychological tolerances), and the general feel is akin to a wide-awake nightmare.  Conversely, Deep Rock Galactic is far more colorful with player characters of somewhat cartoonish proportions (understandably so considering they are supposed to be everyone's favorite bearded race of beer guzzling little people).  Overall, the look is World of Warcraft in space.  Whereas GTFO takes its cryptic storytelling very seriously, Deep Rock Galactic has a lot of comical cynicism, as well as bits of levity sprinkled into what would otherwise be a very grim situation to find oneself in.

Taking all this into account, along with the fact that GTFO is still in early access, Deep Rock Galactic seems like the obvious choice for people interested in playing a game of this particular subgenre...and yet, I find myself leaning toward GTFO.  I was entrenched by similar circumstances concerning Halo and Killzone many years ago.  With regards to the quality of moment-to-moment gameplay, Halo is the superior franchise.  That said, I spent far more time in those days playing Killzone.  Compared to the dreary battlefields of that game, Halo is a riot of color.  Like Killzone, Halo has a fairly grim narrative and it's here that I think I have found the reason for my odd tastes in video games.  For me, the mood of the story needs be reflected in the visuals.  In games like Deep Rock Galactic or the Halo series, I get hit by a form of tonal whiplash...and not in a good way.

I should end this by stressing that I have no prejudice toward bright and colorful games.  Two of my favorite games on the PS3 were Flower and the original Valkyria Chronicles.  More recently, I played Subnautica on the PS4 and enjoyed that game's aesthetic quite a bit too.  It's important to note though the prominent themes in those games are hope, nostalgia and mystery...but not the constant feeling of impending doom.  If you happen to be a game designer and are reading this my suggestion would be make sure your artists are on the same page as your story writers, if for no other reason than consistency's sake.