Seriously, I Don't Want to be the Chosen One

I wrote a humorous article about how I don’t want to be the Chosen One and blessed with driving the narrative of saving the planet/country/princess. But I’m serious - I don’t want to be the chosen one anymore. I don't even want to be the good guy anymore.

The Fallout games are well known for giving you an open world and a lot of freedom. I came into the series with 3, like a lot of people, as it looked like a game I could enjoy. Of course, I played the good guy route - you always play as the good guy, right? Well, enough of that.

I slowly realised as I played, that you could do some nasty things. You stole a lot of things - it’s not like you had a job, how else could you get money? You were freshly out of the only place you’d known for your entire life. So I stole, I sold my ill-gotten gains - sometimes to the people from whom it was stolen.

I enjoyed doing the things that got me Bad Karma more than the good: so I did those things. I killed, extorted and straight up sold two children to the slavers. That's right! The worst people in Fallout 3 and I did business with them. Twice. Three if you count the fact I paid to release a couple of their slaves - but the other option was kill them all and I didn't need that hassle when I might have been able to sell more people.

Though when it turned out I couldn't, I wiped them off the map.

I was a horrible person in Fallout 3 - and it was the most fun I'd had since GTA: Vice City. Though the GTA and Saints Row series' make the player a criminal, you're never a villain. You're working for your family, your friends and loved ones. The Dungeon Keeper games (and spiritual successors), and Evil Genius make the player a villain, but it’s simply building a lair and it's played up for comedy. I like funny games, but I want to be evil, damnit! I never get to be evil in real life, I always have to be the good guy because society (and basic decency, I guess) tells me I should. And I want to be evil in more than just the one objective. Hotline Miami - kill people. Payday - steal things.

I want to push people down some stairs. I want to loot. Hey, it sure would be fun to enter that bank and hold everyone hostage for a while - then shoot them all anyway. But to get any of that I have to be; a nice guy criminal, a man who will get redemption, a good man in a bad situation...

Videogames allow us to live out our fantasies - become a football legend, fly a fighter jet, command an army, rule a country! But never 'be a completely horrible person'. So yeah, it's more than just not wanting to be the Chosen One. I want to be the Evil One.