Can I pet the eagle?
He unsaddles from his trusty horse, equipping his bow and grabbing several arrows upon landing.
He focuses on making a clean kill, nailing the heart of the whitetail deer.
He releases his bow string.
The arrow whistles through the air.
Suddenly something startles the deer, causing the arrow to miss the heart, instead plunging into the lungs.
We hear the pained heart-wrenching grunts of the wounded deer.
Arthur trudges over, unsheathing his knife.
He compassionately puts the animal out of its misery.
The Van Der Linde gang will be well fed for a few days.
Even as a child, I’ve always had an affinity with animals and nature.
A lot of this came from learning about dinosaurs.
Who wouldn’t be astonished to know that gigantic reptiles roamed the Earth millions of years ago?
I’ve always known that animals are integral to the world and need to be protected.
All to get to finally complete the comprehensive compendium.
The negative aspect of that realism for me was the graphic act of skinning animals.
It just looked and felt too real.
Red Dead 2 meant that I could not look away.
Elsewhere, The Last Of Us Part 2 similarly affected me when dogs were introduced as enemies.
Why should I feel accountable for my actions?
It’s just a game, right?
It was such a joy to play, as I felt connected with the birds.
In other games, I’d just see birds as feathers useful for creating arrows!
It highlighted an internal dilemma I have with how nature is portrayed in games.
Inevitably, open-world games have to restrict the way in which players can interact with the world.
However, there is a big shift happening.
The highly anticipated Bethesda gameStarfieldis an ambitious space RPG with 1000 colony worlds to explore.
The gameplay reveal showed us the mysterious rocky moon Kreet, with different alien creatures in the environment.
Then there’s something like Stray.
What a fantastic concept.
You explore a decaying cybercity through the eyes of a cat as you untangle an ancient mystery.
I think that more games should have animal protagonists.
Stray’s approach makes sense.
