Games make me care about the characters that I control

Oct 27, 2012 17:51 GMT  ·  By

I have recently been playing Crusader Kings II once again, enjoying the medieval grand strategy which allows me to execute family members, invade neighboring kingdoms, plot the downfall of my enemies and generally cause as much mischief as possible while keeping the head firmly on my ruler’s shoulders.

And, for the first time, I became aware of the fact that I could actually name my children (mostly because the computer generated suggestion sounded vaguely Romanian).

With the game paused I sat in my chair looking at the small text box where I could type a new name for my newborn male heir and thought about the value of a name and how it could influence my future Crusader Kings II decisions.

That heir might grow up to resent me and rise in rebellion, at which point I might be forced to kill him.

That heir might die on the battlefield or because of illness before he gets a chance to lead my kingdom.

That heir might grow up to become an ineffectual ruler, with his name always starring me down to show how I failed to secure my line of kings.

At the same time I am playing XCOM: Enemy Unknown and there I have no issue with renaming all my soldiers, mostly because I find it much easier to keep track of them as long as their names have a familiar ring.

However, I also enjoy seeing my friends from real life morph into very capable fighters in XCOM, dealing the aliens that are poised to invade Earth.

Of course, it pains me when one of the renamed soldiers goes down and needs to sit out a number of battles in the infirmary or when they actually give their life to protect others, but the fact that I know their names offers certain significance to their acts.

So the question remains: what’s in a video game name?