Rituals of Play: A Side Quest to Manchester

In which Alex pre-games in Oxford

Alex and I will both be on panels at the Manchester Game Centre's Multiplatform 2025 Conference: Rituals of Play⁠, where we'll be presenting on FFVII and FFVIII, respectively.

I'll post the text and recordings here once they're available. But if you're reading this in time, it's free to attend virtually.

In a Side Quests conversation recorded last weekend, we talk through some of our ideas and possible scholarly sources, with shout-outs to ⁠Signum University⁠ and the ⁠Game Studies Study Buddies⁠, among others.

The phrase he can't remember at first is mono no aware; the artist I'm spacing on, Yoshitaka Amano.

Our abstract proposals:

How Worlds Collide: The Parallax of Psychology and Cosmology in Final Fantasy VIII, or The Interplay of the Mythic and Psychological

Final Fantasy VIII was a genre defining JRPG from the late 20th century which itself followed a groundbreaking installment and innovative masterpiece, FFVII, and was followed by a widely plauded meditation on the ubiquity of death in FFIX. These three JRPG’s constituted the “Playstation One Era” of Square’s iterative Final Fantasy JRPG’s, and are often described by scholars and gamers alike, as part of “the golden age” of the JRPG genre of video games. What made these games, and in particular FFVIII, worthy of a rank also ascribed to 16th century Spanish drama, 1st century Imperial Rome, and even an indefinite mytho-historical time in Don Quixote, Dante’s Inferno, and Hesiod’s Works and Days? In this essay, the heavy and sometimes confused interplay of mythological themes in Square’s Final Fantasy VIII will serve as a map for exploring the development of the protagonist’s consciousness, sense of his self, and understanding of the depth of the world surrounding him in both space and time. In exploring this thread, the paper will examine the ways in which the protagonist’s expanding sense of himself reflects his expanding understanding of the cosmos he inhabits, and that an essential aspect of works from any “golden age” is that they serve to effect similar transformations in those who listen to, read, or play them.

Mansion, Safe, Coffin: Ritual Game Space and Hidden Chaos in Final Fantasy VII

How are secrets in video games, such as side quests, unique items, and hidden characters, potentially generative of powerful real world connections and revelations? Early in course of their playthrough of Final Fantasy VII (Square 1997), players can obtain an item which has no apparent use: the Peacemaker, a handgun that none of the characters currently in the party are able to equip. Hidden in plain sight in one of the treasure chests in Kalm, the first village outside the game’s opening sequence, the grayed out item in the inventory points obliquely through its lack of immediate functionality towards an optional side quest later in the story, while its name hearkens directly to real-world historical and theological references. There follows an important flashback during which the main character, Cloud, and the game’s iconic antagonist, Sephiroth, join forces to investigate reports of a malfunctioning reactor near Cloud’s hometown of Nibelheim. Climbing into the mountains and slaying dragons by the way, they discover evidence of human experimentation that causes Sephiroth to question the source of his own uncanny powers and the circumstances of his birth. Hours of gameplay and many twists and turns of the plot later, upon reaching Nibelheim in the present of the story, players have the option of exploring the Shinra Mansion, where the creators of this monstrous technology secreted their basement laboratory. By following the obscure hints written on a note near the entrance--or more likely, looking up the combination online--they can open a safe containing the Odin summon magic along with the key to a room in the basement, where the hidden gunslinger Vincent can finally be awoken from his rest in a coffin to join the party. Eventually, extending to sequels and paratexts outside the confines of the base game, his backstory reveals the presence of primordial Chaos within the worldbuilding of FFVII. I argue that the trail of secrets conducing to the discovery of Vincent and Chaos illustrates the ways in which gameplay breaks the “magic circle,” only to invite players to reinscribe it beyond the scope of the game so as to call up the sources and interpretations of allusions to history and myth in their own lives.

Ben essentially gave his talk on Project Moon weeks ago. Though his proposal wasn't deemed occult enough for the occasion by the organizers, I hope he'll end up writing the paper anyway, perhaps in the course of future posts on Limbus Company. His abstract:

Many multiplayer games (like Fortnite, World of Warcraft, or “gacha” games) incorporate mechanics that reward daily, weekly, or event-related participation to drive up microtransaction sales, encourage habitual play, and enable social communities to form in their game spaces. Limbus Company, the third game by Korean developer Project Moon, makes the odd choice to incorporate many of these mechanics, despite the fact that Limbus Company hosts virtually no multiplayer interactions, and is, instead, a single-player-focused game telling an ongoing story over several years. Furthermore, this story is, in fact, a re-telling of some of world literature’s greatest classics: Don Quixote, Faust, Ulysses, and Yi Sang are all among the characters in the game, and their stories are re-told in each of the game’s chapters, though each of these re-tellings is relocated to the game world Project Moon has built over their career. Many players across the world, inspired by the game, have gone on to read and learn these great works directly, in order to understand and appreciate the thematic adaptations made by Project Moon in this ongoing story. Intentionally or unintentionally, Project Moon has created a game that invites players to ritually re-tell these great stories through play and community, and to engage with a globally-minded cultural identity.