Summary
Violence begets violence. That’s the buttoned-up truth about vengeance (and the reason that people in the modern world ultimately defer to third-party institutions with a monopoly on force to resolve conflicts). However, as bipedal flesh bags carrying around a jangled clump of primordial nerves and an often-bewildered sense of justice, the feeling (or at least fantasy) of being able to deliver payback against rivals or evildoers personally can be intoxicating.
As an outlet, TV, books, or movies can give people a vicarious taste of what it feels like to personally right a wrong like in the old uncivilized days, but nothing quite beats a well-told narrative video game giving players the satisfaction of pulling the trigger, dropping the hammer, or cutting the rope themselves. While some games go out of their way to teach the world thatviolence is not the answer, these games serve revenge in extra-large dollops of satisfaction, hot or cold.
While its presentation of morality is a little black and white, Arkane Studio’s masterful whalepunk epicDishonoredoffers players the chance to settle things cleanly or flush the whole rotten world down alongside the rotten ring of conspirators who murdered their way to power. Each mission is a retribution in which the player chooses how painful they want to make their enemies' punishment.
Players, knowing thattheir choice was made freelyand that higher ground was possible, commit themselves to shaping a darker, grittier world with every neck they slit and every surge of rage they vent back into their foe. Of course, the bloodless routes are also just as satisfying, knowing that the evil people who murdered Corvo’s empress and took away her daughter will pay dearly and painfully for many years to come.
Revenge is a primary motivator for many of the protagonists in theAssassin’s Creedseries, most notably2,3,Unity, andOrigins, although this desire for retribution is almost always replaced or conveniently tied in with a quest forliberty and freedom against greater oppression. MostACfans will agree that the most heart-wrenching moment came in the opening act ofAssassin’s Creed 2when Ezio is forced to watch his family being unjustly executed in public.
Perhaps because of some behind-the-scenes, last-minute changes (including splitting the final city, Rome, into its own game in the sequel), Ezio lost his thirst for payback right in the final moments, and Rodrigo Borgia is allowed to go free at the last minute, despite having openly orchestrated the Auditore da Firenze family’s grim demise. However, Ezio regains his rage inBrotherhoodin his battle against the wider Borgia family, when he witnesses (and instigates) their patriarch’s fall.
There have been some great motivators over the years to get the player pumped up and excited to leave their place of safety and wander the wastelands: twice the journey was to find a family member, once to save the tribe. However,Fallout: New Vegasstands out as having the most explosive opening.
After waking up from a headshot wound delivered by a checkered-suited-wearing, smooth-talker named Benny, the Courier decides to personally oversee the return delivery. While players have a couple of options when it comes to dealing with Benny, nothing quite beats the feeling of returning the favor once the Courier finally catches up to him.
Sometimes the desire for vengeance can’t be aimed at one single individual or group. Sometimes, righteous anger must be directed at an unjust system (or inWatch Dog 2’s case, an unjust algorithm). Mark Holloway’s life is ruined thanks to a surveillance system that was “perfectly designed” to catch criminals by statistical probability. Because of his ethnicity and status as a legal gun owner, he was pinned as the perpetrator of a crime he did not commit.
What follows is a bombastic clapback at technological oppression. While Mark goes about accomplishing his mission in non-lethal ways, hismanipulation of the same high-tech systemdesigned to suppress and control the population allows him to expose the corrupt practices of a power-hungry elite and start a digital movement of international resistance.
While a powerful motivator, revenge can burn a person’s body, even age them before their years as they persist in a state of smoldering focus. InSifu, perhaps one of the greatest martial arts beat-em-ups of modern times, this metaphor is used quite literally. The master of a martial arts school is murdered by their disgraced student and their gang and the master’s child with him.
Fortunately, a magical amulet resurrects the child and ages them. Eight years later, the master’s child (known as the student) visits the murderous gang members in their hideouts, brutally maiming or breaking all in their way, in a quest to kill their father’s former student. Should they fail at any point in their mission, the amulet will bring them back but cost them years of their life. The older they get, the stronger and more vengeful they become.
The “they killed my entire family” revenge backstory premise fueling the “nothing to lose” archetype is a raging masculine cliché at this point, butMax Paynewas one of the first video games to nail the essence of running a vendetta in a blazingly cool shooter. Using twin pistols, dive-bombing bullet time, and a whole lot of painkillers, Max mows down the people responsible for the death of his child and wife.
Especially in the first game, while he is still burning from his sense of loss and betrayal, Max’sbody count climbs to apocalyptically high numbers, which is fitting considering the number of references there are to Norse mythology and Ragnarök, the end of the gods.
Before Kratos moved on to his slightly more “contemplative dad-chats and chill” phase following the birth of his son, the Spartan god of war was all about one thing: covering himself in the blood of the gods. The originalGod of Wartrilogy was birthed in video game culture’s edgiest era when players saw the ash-skinned Spartan rip through everygod and hero in Ancient Greek mythologywithout a jot of apology or introspective contemplation.
After slaying Ares, the original God of War who tricked him into murdering his family, Kratos decides to use the Blades of Chaos to destroy the lofty deities of Mount Olympus. All who get in his way, and even some who are actually trying to help him in his bloodthirsty desire for reckoning, are brutally cut down, no matter how large (or titanic) in size.
