The Game Boy: Linear Games Aren't Bad – They're Just Misunderstood

Certain sects of the gaming populace would have you believe that linearity – be it in story or gameplay – is a dinosaur, on a fated collision course with the meteor that is freeform game design. After all, who wants to be funneled down the same glorified corridor every time they play through a game – having the same conversations with the same characters – when they could be forging new paths and crafting their own unique stories as they go along? Sure, Half-Life 2 was great, but we’re in the age of Far Cry 2, Fallout 3, and Grand Theft Auto now, right? Sitting back and just watching a story unfold without intervening? That’s old news, a musty relic for people who prefer movies… or even books! And man, those people are friggin’ nerds.

Or at least, that’s what I thought until I played Zeno Clash. For the uninitiated, Zeno Clash is a first-person brawler (think Riddick, but minus Vin “I just ingested a sheet of sandpaper” Diesel’s vocals) developed by the mad Chilean geniuses at ACE Team. But such a quick and conventional description doesn’t even come close to doing the game justice. Oh sure, punches and kicks flow as freely as the teeth you’ll knock loose with them, but Zeno Clash’s real star is its strange, unsettling, and yet all at once cohesive world.

In fact, instead of “strange,” let’s try “downright bizarre.” Zeno Clash’s world isn’t some simple paint-by-numbers sci-fi/fantasy videogame setting. Instead, at first glance, it appears to be the result of paint buckets tossed willy-nilly onto a canvas, with colors strewn all about in no recognizable pattern, yet placed on top of a recognizable shape. In more concrete terms, here are just a few of the things that you’ll see in a typical Zeno Clash setting: bird-people, tables with actual human legs, screaming women in diving helmets, exploding squirrels, women with exposed… spinal cords (Yeah, not exactly what you were hoping for, huh?), and purple trees with limbs that twist and tangle like a broken Slinky. And that, my friends, is merely the beginning.

Zeno Clash’s world, then, is a total escape not only from our own, but from those in which we normally take up virtual residence. But why should you care? I mean, weird is nice and all, but that’s usually that. No substance – just layers upon layers of smoke and enough mirrors to fill a narcissist convention. Gimmickery, plain and simple.
 
That, however, is where Zeno Clash’s familiar linear structure comes into play. For all its world’s disheveled madness, the game is perhaps the most focused I’ve ever played. It exists to convey certain ideas and philosophies, to make you feel very specific feelings, and to slowly peel back its setting’s layers of madness and reveal the methods behind them. The game’s world design, character development, and plot progression work in tandem to accomplish this, and succeed admirably. However, the design mechanics employed in Zeno Clash’s linear success are – when compared to the game’s industry peers – just as outlandish as its setting.

From the very beginning in fact, Zeno Clash bucks trends with fearless abandon. The game’s opening scene, for instance, takes place about mid-way through Zeno Clash’s actual plot, with main character Ghat detonating a bomb in avian benefactor Father-Mother’s face. Why? No explanation whatsoever. All you can infer is that Father-Mother won’t be too happy when he-she comes to, and – taking a cue from popular avian celebrity Daffy Duck – will probably straighten his-her beak and say “Of course you know, this means war.” So, of course, Ghat runs away. His fleeing, then, sets the stage for a perfectly paced tour of the game’s world from the perspective of a guy who doesn’t find the place abnormal at all. It’s his home, after all.   

In the process, you’re treated to a number of flashbacks, which slowly dole out information about Ghat’s motivations, as well as those of other characters. Without spoiling too much, it turns out that Ghat’s literally explosive tirade against Father-Mother resulted from his involvement with a forest-dwelling bunch of loonies known as the Corwids. These outcasts of society, Ghat explains, choose to ignore the requirements of reality. Don’t want to feed or wash yourself? Then don’t. Die in a pool of your own urine. That sort of thing. Ghat, as least, according to my interpretation of the story, admires the Corwids’ sheer will more than anything else, which resulted in his pre-Zeno Clash attempt to join them.

Here arises one of the game’s most interesting conflicts. Whereas most games pit a (at the very least) well-intentioned character against some sort of outward enemy, Zeno Clash sees a main character struggling within himself, as well as fighting actual, physical enemies. Should Ghat choose to live the sometimes fatally lackadaisical life of a Corwid, or should he heed the wishes of his companions and put a stop to all this Corwid nonsense? Ghat’s inner turmoil eventually feeds back into the main plot, resulting in an ending that certainly conveys a message, but doesn’t spell every last thing out like so many videogame endings we’re used to.

As a result, even though you never aided Ghat in any of moral decision-making (you only grab the reigns when its clobberin’ time), your experience with the game is still unique because the game’s story is layered enough to leave room for multiple interpretations. You may take one thing away from the ending while someone else might think the complete opposite. In other words, just because much of the story wasn’t a byproduct of your in-game choices, that doesn’t mean its impact isn’t personal.

Best of all, Zeno Clash flies straight and true, never once veering from its path into length-padding filler. This allows the game’s story and gameplay to arc beautifully, closing the curtains at around the four hour mark. In this respect, it shows a surprising amount of restraint, as the developers could’ve easily thrown in a few more hours-worth of window-dressing, along with a couple more gameplay mechanics, but they didn’t. That would’ve taken away from Zeno Clash’s message and the pacing thereof, and ACE Team knew that. A more open, malleable story, then, wouldn’t work at all in this situation for obvious reasons.

So, what can we learn from Zeno Clash’s success? Well, foremost, that there’s still a place for linear gameplay and story in the gaming industry, if it’s implemented with restraint and skill. Beyond that, each aspect of Zeno Clash is a lesson in itself. Its strange and fascinating world, its atypical narrative structure, its layered conflict and multifaceted resolution – all of these things are seldom used in linear videogames. Obviously, then, with so much potential yet to be tapped, jumping the gun and retiring linear videogame structures would be a huge mistake.