In this immersive historical FPS game in a big franchise, we have a unique protagonist, Aveline, who could switch between her identities and achieve her goals by switching her roles. This creates an interesting experience for the players, and to have insight about “fluidity of identity and the politics of context”, according to Murray in Poetics of Form and Politics of Identity. This fluidity of Aveline in this game, however, could be a negative externality on the other NPCs in the game.
To highlight the different things Aveline could achieve in different characters and the game mechanism, the NPCs (and especially her enemies) in this game are largely simplified or stereotyped. For instance, a soldier in uniform speaks “enemy”, and a random officer standing on the street speaks “flirtable”. In fact, there are many missions in the game about “killing the guards”, and “eliminate the soldiers”, and sometimes we can feel the game is deliberately stereotyping our enemies as “bad people” to justify our violence.
For instance, there is a side quest in the game, where you would see some citizens protesting the increasing disappearance of civilians after the Spanish arrived in front of a group of officers. And the officers get irritated and attack the civilians, so it was up to Aveline to protect the civilians from the officers. After putting everyone down, however, we would learn that the civilians are being furious and aggressive towards the officers for no solid evidence.
But since the officers attacked the civilians anyway, we are justified to stop them from hurting the civilians. Just like that, our violence towards the officers is always justified, since the officers are simply designed characters who just embodies hostility, evilness, and of course, the obstacles on our mission.
Additionally, it forms an interesting comparison with the other game of this week, Deltarune. In Deltarune, you get to learn your enemies as individuals with secret hobbies or special traits. They embody not only their duties but also their own wills.
Why the difference in the depiction of enemies, though? On my first thought, I would argue that this historical game is more of a fantasy than a serious replicate of the real historical world. For us to identify with the experience of the protagonist and still feel like a heroine, we can’t dive too deep into the moral controversy of killing. But given a second thought, learning about our enemies and “sparing” them with flirting or patting is more of a fantasy in the real world…
I think you raise a great point on why the game creates a different depiction of enemies. On one hand, the depiction may make the player more justified to be an assassin. But on the other hand, the depiction deviates from reality and the complication of assassinations. I think that in fact the two do not conflict. I think if the game has a realistic representation of assassination, it only adds more layers to the gameplay. For example, in later Assassin's Creed series, assassins become less and less justified to kill people and the game often prompts the players to question the morality their decisions.
I really connect with your interpretation of the game's take on how the enemies are presented. Often people of a certain appearance or status are assumed to have certain behaviors attached to that appearance, such as soldiers being hostile and unwavering. While this simplification does not tend to be accurate, it does lead the player, both in-game and in real life, to judge and handle situations based on this assumed knowledge before he/she has gathered more information. I see this connecting to police officers attacking African-American males purely based on the fact that they assume them to be a threat without having any other evidence that they are hostile, which leads to the unnecessary violence that you speak of.
I agree with your assessment of the enemies being over-simplified and the player having a lack of moral choice when fighting these guards or enemies. From a game play perspective, it makes the game easier, not having to worry about which people are friends, foe, or neutral. If players (especially new players) had to navigate a completely new and complex world not knowing who was an enemy or not, then the game may feel more like a stealth, avoid the world type of game rather than the role playing game it is now. Though I think an even bigger factor is to look at the decision from a design/product perspective.
If the developers of Assassin's Creed chose to give enemies…