Story commentary

[LynxR]

“Start your adventure as the humble son of a blacksmith, who alone has survived the wrath of the mercenary army that mercilessly destroyed [his] home and murdered [his] family.”

Such an exposition would be more fitting for a children’s or young adult novel, comic magazine or a fairy tale, where nearly every protagonist is an orphan.

“With your life turned upside down, you swear to avenge your family.”

Revenge… old story… always pointless. If revenge is achieved, it doesn’t undo anything. If it is not achieved but desired, it only leads to madness.

“Try and redeem your failures…”

If I may ask: how is it Henry’s fault that everyone in his village was killed by an invading army?

“…and emerge a hero!”

I’m not sure what Daniel Vavra understands by this…

Besides, wasn’t the main character supposed to be nothing more but a common soldier who struggles through the war, and not the “hero of the day”?

Story-wise, you’re doing many of the things (copy-paste minus the fantasy elements) you have decried in other games.

[Gryphonheart]

That actually sounds more like Ryse and the story about Marius becoming Damocles… one of the best new games imo, I enjoyed that a lot, even with all it’s mistakes.

I still hope we’ll get some medieval version of Tommy Angelo or Viktor Troska. More or less they both actually went on that problematic path ‘from zero to hero’ and later ‘from hero to graveyard’, which was great fun to play actually.

What I currently fear the most is, that there won’t be any retrospective, since for me personally it’s quite important to know that the world stayed the same place as it used to be before I entered it with all my choices and decisions. What’s interesting is, that all three games mentioned - Mafia, Flaspoint and Ryse - were also told this way and used retrospective a lot.

[ProkyBrambora]

Truth be told I think the description you citated is not to be taken word by word,
But anyway I am tagging @Hellboy, if he by any chance visits forum so he would explain you what is going on.
Because I cannot really tell you anything about that.

(Also maybe @KarChee might shine some light upon this.)

[Earl_Thorn]

where nearly every protagonist is an orphan

Historiographic Metafiction (HM). It’s the post-modern practice of a fiction author inserting imagined–or illegitimate–characters into narratives that are intended to be received as authentic and historically accurate. If you read any contemporary fantasy fiction, you’ll notice that the idea of the bastard protagonist is a very common, and very successful one.

The orphan plot device is merely an extension of that practice really in my mind. I mean, why re-invent the wheel? It works, and it works well without being overly complex. Sometimes the simplest things are the most effective and relate-able.

On revenge… it’s basic human nature. Eye for an eye… who knows what the journey will entail, and what themes / messages WH will be attempting to convey throughout the telling of Henry’s tale. But at very least you are assuming a great deal. Give the devs some credit, I doubt this will simply be a straightforward tale of revenge…

The failures part… I’m with you on this one. I have no idea what that’s referring to. And as Proky says, this isn’t something we’re familiar with. I’m sure it will all come to light soon enough though.

Hmmm, I can’t help but feel you’re right about the hero quote too. All throughout this process, we’ve been told time and time again that Henry is not ‘The Chosen One’; he’s no hero, he’s the son of a blacksmith, from a small village, the lone survivor who swears to avenge his families murder by joining the fight with his local lord.

I guess it all depends on how they’re defining what being a ‘hero’ actually means in this context…But it does come off as being somewhat hypocritical given all we’ve heard and been told from day one.

I like being a hero though… so works for me

[KarChee]

Hi guys.

Obviously i can’t tell you anything specific about the story. But rest assured that we are well aware of all the tropes and clichés used in games/novels/movies etc. That doesn’t mean we are trying to avoid anything that has been used before, but we are playing with what you might expect in a familiar situation. And hopefully surprise you.

[williethewolf]

Except for the fact that he was enslaved and that there’s wizardry involved in the lore, that would be basically the log line for Conan The Barbarian.