The Use Of Agency in Dragon Age 2 and The Walking Dead

Agency is often lauded as the one special feature of videogames in that it allows for the player (ie you) to determine their avatar’s fictional fate. 

But is this really a black and white case which all games seem to have in ample quantities? 

I would say no, as the agency depicted from one game to another is radically different, and enact different expectations in their players, both heightening and lowering expectations of the games plot, character abilities and the enjoyment of the game.

For the rest of this post I will set up what agency is (because there are soooooooooooo many different types and descriptions of agency), and analyse the types of agency present in both Dragon Age 2 and The Walking Dead, setting myself up for an argument to why Dragon Age 2’s ending was more disappointing and less emotively driven than The Walking Dead’s ending.

Note: I do realise this is a subjective opinion, but yet at the same time there are reasons for my opinion and I’m expressing them. Note too that I did enjoy Dragon Age 2, except for its usage of agency and where the  plot fell (WHICH WAS IN A BAD PLACE) at the end.

Note Note 2: There will be spoilers, but to be honest I don't think that anyone reading this will care that much about spoilers for games that are no longer recent.

Agency

Agency is, for the purposes of these games, narrative choices that affect how other in-game characters react to a player's character, as well as choices that determine the player's morality. For more discussion about agency refer to the previous post.

Dragon Age 2

In Dragon Age 2 agency is expressed as it normally would in any Bioware game, you express choices based upon (usually) two different characters’ points of view and decide upon that how to deal with a particular issue.

Agency and disposition in a side quest.

For the most part this exists in a fairly formulistic way, good options are highlighted in blue, bad in red. In later instalments of Bioware games there is a deepening of the impact that these choices have upon your companions. In Mass Effect some alien factions wouldn’t join your cause, in Neverwinter Nights 2 some characters’ specific side quests wouldn’t open up, it goes on. For the most part the agency or choices offered to players are signposted with a lot of exposition, in-game cinematography, and a highlighted UI (showing good as blue and bad actions as red. Furthermore when the particular option is chosen the effects thereof are shown almost immediately with different “good,” or “bad” points assigned to the player with a notification.

For the most part this display of agency is “empowering” of the player in that everything the player does has immediate feedback, and goes the way that the player expects the events to go. In essence it’s a sort of wish fulfilment for the player. Certainly the player has to work towards these goals and do the hard yards of killing x amounts of enemies to get abilities which then affects their character and the plot. But in the end the choice becomes earned, and subsequently the result of that choice is earned as well.

This rarely goes bad for the player.

There is no other option!

That is at least until the end of the game when you are given no other actions, but to accept the fact that there needs to be a war between the two magic groups the Charter and the Apostate groups (due to some terrorist activity by a group member that would otherwise listen to your advice). Even though you’re clearly given the options to try and circumvent it, there is no way that you can prevent the war, or stop your companion from becoming a terrorist. This didn’t feel in line with the games previous indications of agency, and while the non-agency can be explained away by saying that it’s a narrative device (The game has to end this way), the denial of agency felt false. Especially since at other points in the game you are given full control of your agency.  This ruined the game somewhat for me, the game had lied to me.

The Walking Dead

In The Walking Dead, agency is whole other kettle of fish. Agency is presented as it would in other games, the player has a list of possible actions and the in-game character does those actions. You tell Lee to do something and he’ll do it, to the best of his abilities.

Including slipping over on blood and backing away very slowly from zombies.

The key difference here though is that the agency that is attempted by the player isn’t all encompassing – just because you decide to do something, doesn’t necessitate that the action will be successful, your character only has so much control of the events that surround him.

(For the above picture since the formatting is playing up) : One of the first pivotal moments where your agency determines the future result of the game - choosing between saving saving Shawn or Duck – except not really, Shawn Greene (Hershel's son) will die either way.
  

Regardless of Lee’s actions in certain sections, there is no possible way for him to circumvent some situations, because his agency isn’t all encompassing. Lee while certainly directed in the same narrative arch that the Shepherds and Grey Wardens were, is further hampered by his own abilities, and the characters around him. Lee’s inability to stop Shawn's death, Larry’s or even the suicide of Katjaa, are events that in other game universes would simply be a matter of fact. Added to their impact is the agency that other characters have over Lee’s survival, he doesn’t dictate the group, he can only guide, each character is their own unique agent, that as often as not, will go rogue.

The game conditions you with this by firstly denying full agency when an apparent choice is given (the above example of Shawn and Duck), and thereafter only providing the barest hints of choice. Many players, myself included, were not accustomed to this and when this denial of agency was encountered, tried to circumvent it by trying the same scenario again – it took me 20 minutes to realise that there was no way that I could save Hershel’s son. The thing that mattered though was that I could try to prevent that, I was given agency, but only to the extent of Lee’s abilities.

Mass Effect 2 seems to try to supply these complex characters in the idea of the loyalty missions in which Shepherd could win their loyalty over by completing a mission concerning the individual’s backstory. But all of these missions were clearly signposted and easy to navigate, the characters in The Walking Dead were not so logical in the opening up of their loyalties and past histories, instead you have to deal with unstable characters.

Regardless, The Walking Dead through its denial of agency, and actions of their individual characters conditions players to acknowledge their limitations in the game and narrative, as being part of the game world, and so when actions weren’t able to be performed in the Walking Dead, I was much more ready to accept them. Dragon Age 2, on the other hand, alongside other Bioware games, seemed to have narrative agency loss in arbitary circumstances causing immersion and characterization to break, as the situation would appear to be similar to other ones in which my character had control.

Conclusion

 The Walking Dead through its entire arc acclimatizes you to the available actions within the game, whereas Bioware games, Dragon Age 2 in particular does not, and as such, suffers from it. With this acclimatization comes a more ready acceptance of loss and lack of control, repercussions become more personal, loss actual - Dragon Age 2 attempts to do this, but without the preamble making it's ending unexpected and unfair to the player.