It’s 2016, the topsy-turvy year that saw a rodeo clown ascend to the highest office in the land, so it makes perfect sense that the rawest, most profound expression of empathy and compassion we’ve seen in a very long time should come to us in the form of a new video game.
It’s called The Last Guardian, and it begins with a small boy waking up in a damp cave. He’s not quite sure how he got there, or why his skin is suddenly covered with strange tattoos. His reveries, however, are cut short when he notices a Trico—half-bird and half-cat, a gargantuan predator the size of a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon—lying beside him on the floor. The boy jumps back in horror, but the beast grunts in pain: It’s only then that the boy—and with him, the player—notices that the Trico is chained to the ground and that his side is pierced with spears. For a few long minutes, the game’s sole objective is to help the Trico heal: Remove the spears, find some food and offer it to the wounded creature, and, finally, undo its chains. Once the Trico is healthy and unfettered, the game begins in earnest.
Continue reading "‘The Last Guardian,’ A New Video Game, is a Meditation on Empathy " at...