18 / wfmag.ccReviling rodentsInterface
WRITTEN BY SEAN MARTINrom a staple enemy of fantasy RPG,
to the visceral hordes of narrative-
driven games, rats are frequently
depicted as evil. But what does that
evil amount to? Why are rats the
perfect enemy? Or are they even enemies at all?
I remember my first encounter with video
game rats – in 2001’s Max Payne there’s a subway
level, where if you throw a grenade into a rathole,
you will be granted an extra objective stating,
‘I have declared war on the rats’. The rodents will
arm themselves with Desert Eagles, and proceed
to enact their revenge on the gurning detective.
It’s a weird Easter egg, but ‘killer rats’ is actually
pretty on-point in reflecting the way we view rats
in games. In the years that followed, I covered
myself in rat blood in Dragon Age, farmed rats for
humanity in Dark Souls, and committed single-
handed genocide in Vermintide – all without ever
really thinking about it. That’s probably why rats
are such great enemies – our cultural distaste for
them runs so deep, that in our minds they easily
occupy the position.
We tell stories about rats
doing evil things – in The
Witcher 3, it’s a paralysed
nobleman’s daughter being
eaten alive, in Dishonored,
a city of rat bites and
body bags. But who’s to
blame in those stories?
What’s far more interesting
about video game rats
is their ability to be bothF
an enemy, and somehow occupy a position
of blamelessness. They only act according
to their nature. But that begs the question:
in human terms, is their nature evil?THE PLAGUE
One of our oldest negative associations of rats
relates to the Black Death, the period of plague
during Medieval Europe, which they were
originally blamed for. A Plague Tale: Innocence
is a game which seeks to exaggerate that story
for the purpose of the in-game experience –
creating a plague of rats more akin to folk-tale
than a historically accurate depiction. As creative
director on the game, David Dedeine says,
“We have been warpers of history!” The result
of this so-called warping is, however, pretty
terrifying. To experience one of A Plague Tale’s
rat-swarms is to witness a nightmare. “It speaks
directly to the reptilian brain, your body
actually reacts to it,” Dedeine jokes. “The brain
can’t describe it, that’s what makes it scary.”
Staring nto the writhing, red-eyed mass of
rodent bodies, pouring from the walls, and
through cracks in the floor, I’m inclined to agree
with him. But part of what also makes them
scary, is that they’re always present. “It’s like the
shark in Jaws,” Dedeine explains. “When you’re
on the surface of the sea, you don’t know where
the shark is. Rats are the same.” We all know
the urban myth, that in a city you’re never more
than two metres away from a rat – A Plague Tale
effectively creates the mechanical version of this.
As Dedeine says: “Every single hole in the wall
can begin to tell a story.”
Another reason A Plague Tale’s rats are
terrifying is because they cease to beReviling
How games made rats the bad guys
RODENTS
The anthropomorphism
of the Skaven is evident.