After playing Dishonored 2, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, and Prey, I just wanted something shallow, no choice, no skill trees, just a linear shooting gallery with a set piece or two. Boy did I choose the wrong game? I went into Spec Ops: The Line expecting the video game equivalent of Lil Wayne on a codeine binge but walked away from it like I just heard Kendrick Lamar for the first time. The game’s ability to subvert those expectations may be its greatest strength. It’s a game that I would have never played if I didn’t treat every Steam sale like I was Max Payne at a bar offering free drinks mere minutes after he just finished watching the movie adaptation of his game. I’m here now to discuss it, not review it, nor recap it. You should buy it, If you haven’t bought it, leave now, there will be spoilers. I do not address the White Phosphorous scene only because it has been discussed ad nauseam, it is a powerful scene, but the game shines without it. Subversion, moral ambiguity, choice, and gameplay that extenuate the story drive the narrative. It is an excellent example of why I personally believe video game narratives at their best--which I admit is a rarity--are better than just about any form of artistic fiction.

Subversion

Spec Ops: The Line is the Tinder date that is actually more attractive than their photos. Though there's immediately something that seems different about the game when you see the title screen has an upside down flag. You play the role of Walker leading a three man Delta Force team, the other two members being Lugo and Adams. You lead them into Dubai during a massive sandstorm to find the 33rd Battalion and their commander Joseph Konrad, they have somehow gone missing in a major city in the 21st century. I get it, sandstorms. The mission was meant to be a recon mission, but this is a video game, and you have guns, so you’ll have to use those guns, a lot.

From the outside, it looks a lot like Gears of War meets COD. Cover shooting? Check. Middle Eastern country? Check. Insurgency? Check. You’re just walking along checking all the boxes until you get into a firefight with American soldiers. Many people that have played this game will point to the White Phosphorus scene as the “shit just got real” moment, for me it was the moment where you hear American voices pleading for re-enforcements and your squadmates, in turn, screaming that we’re on the same side. There are obvious themes in the game’s narrative PTSD being one as asking the player to question their role as the player in the destruction another, but what I found most fascinating was the moral ambiguity and the way the game handles choice, a stark contrast to most modern military shooters.

Moral Ambiguity

We love black and white, good and evil, right and wrong, it makes things simple for us, easier on our conscious. Justification is the mind’s holy water, if the holy water was actually bleach, used generously to cleanse ourselves of sin, no matter how deplorable the act. After Walker’s actions continue to spiral downhill, there’s always a justification, “We had no choice” or a “We need to make Konrad pay for what he has done”. There are many different factions in the game and no one gets to the end of the story innocently, though all could be justified in their intentions, even if not their actions.

The very first mission of the game you’re ambushed by insurgents. Obviously, the bad guys right? Until you realize they’ve been slaughtered by the 33rd. What about the 33rd you say? You can stumble across a conversation on a stairwell when two soldiers discuss the good they are fighting for and you kill them. They initially believe your team is working for the CIA, who themselves are responsible for the insurgency, which is later found out to be a cover for the 33rd’s occupation of Dubai, which started as a humanitarian mission. And, that mission? That mission was to protect the civilians of Dubai, who later kill one of your squadmates, Lugo after you and the CIA basically destroy Dubai’s water supply. Who're the bad guys and good guys here? The fog of war and the distrust it gives life to is something that I’ve personally never encountered in a video game.

Choice

There is another early moment in the game that stood out to me, it was subtle, but it was another moment where I knew this game was different. You’re fighting through a mall that was being used as a makeshift refugee camp, you’re fighting in a corridor and someone comes running at you. That someone was a woman, a civilian, I shot her, not purposely, but because in a tense situation I saw someone moving towards me and fired. The game didn’t reprimand me with a notification or have Lugo or Adams tell me I was a bad person. I didn’t lose XP or get an automatic game over. It’s not like I’ve never spent hours in GTA just killing people indiscriminately, but this was for me different. The game invoked empathy, I’m not sure this was what the writers were hoping to instill, but it did for me. I’ve never been in the military, I could instantly understand how a mistake of the magnitude could be made in a situation where bullets were flying and my life was on the line, life has no save points.

The game is full of choice like this, some subtle, some not. The choices never really alter the narrative as told by the writer, but are interesting nonetheless. While more and more games introduce choice to the player, those choices are as subtle as a Las Vegas casino billboard on a Friday night. The results of the choices are usually binary, you’re either a White Knight or the Asshole. Maybe they get crazy and give you a neutral option.

Many of Spec Ops choices are not explicit, they require the player to think for themselves, this, in my opinion, gives them more weight. I mentioned a scene in the game where Lugo is killed, after a helicopter crash he is separated from the team, arm broken, no gun, and is beaten to death by an angry civilian mob. Adam, as well as the notification on the top of the screen, tells you to shoot the civilians. This is where most games would stop and prompt you to press “A” to kill the mob, “B” to shoot in the air. The game explicitly tells you what to do, you have the choice not to do it, you have many choices actually but it requires you as the player to explore them. That moment was very close to the end of the game, I knew how the game operated by that time and knew there was probably another option, or two. In the end, I shot the mob, it was an emotional reaction to them killing the one person that you could argue was actually “good” in the game. Again, empathy invoked.

When Gameplay Meets Narrative

I’m only scratching the surface of all the tools that Spec Ops uses to tell its story. While the gameplay parts are definitely clunky and “gamey”, the game uses every bit of game real estate to tell its story. It hits a home run where so many games strike out, even great ones. As Walker descends into madness you see evidence of this in the gameplay, his character becomes bloodier, his callouts more callous. The environments are littered with exposition, subtle, but powerful. Despite multiple endings the choices you make do not dramatically alter the story but alter the experience, the game is better for it too. Spec Ops: The Line while not perfect, is a game where the narrative is driven by the writers, the gameplay, and you the player. Simply a thought provoking experience and is a must play for any gamer.