My wife found out about The Elephant Scene and refused to ever play it as long as she lives
Yeah, that part was a distinct bum note in an otherwise enjoyable game. Why the developers thought it was good idea, I’ll never know.
Thanks for the explanation, although I don’t find it a particularly acceptable one. The sequence wasn’t funny enough to justify the dramatic shift in tone in an otherwise family-friendly game, IMO. Also, making the protagonists unlikable in a game where you’re supposed to find them sympathetic is a very weird design decision.
To take the devils advocate position: is conflict not necessary for drama, and effective conflict is one that affects its audience?
The issue isn’t the use of conflict as a dramatic device per se; it is essentially forcing the player(s) to perform a seemingly unnecessary and unpleasant action against their will.
The fact that both main characters in the game appear to immediately decide that violently murdering their child’s favorite toy is the only course of action and that no alternative is offered is really jarring. Giving the player some agency in choosing an alternative way to to go about it would have solved the problem completely.
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I’m curious about comparing this to say - the white phosphorus scene in Spec Ops: The Line, or the airport scene (“no Russian”) in COD, rescuing Ellie instead of giving humanity the cure in The Last of Us…
All things that are arguably a lot worse than pulling a leg off a stuffed Elephant and all require on-rails player action in a game.
The difference is my six-year-old daughter isn’t going to be playing Spec Ops: The Line or Call of Duty.
As a side note, EA has basically locked me out of my entire library and I gave up trying to fix it. Terrible launcher.
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