Beyond Good and Evil : Feel the corruption and oppression

How does the player feel the corruption and the oppression in the game and how does it impact the gameplay ?

Preamble

Beyond Good and Evil was released in 2003 and developed by the French studio Ubisoft Montpellier. The player is plunged into the role of a young woman reporter called Jade who is realising that the authorities' corruption on planet Hillys is growing more and more.

Aliens called the DomZ attack planet Hillys and kidnap tens of citizens but the armed forces are always too late to intervene and not really efficient enough to face these incessant alien invasions.

After a tough fight between Jade and the DomZ, Jade is called by a private organisation, IRIS, known for denouncing the corruption of the authorities and the oppression of the citizens of Hillys.

This organisation called IRIS gave some private informations to Jade and proposed her to investigate about the Alpha Section and the governor of Hillys to discover why the DomZ and the Alpha Section seem to be in cooperation.

Detailed Analysis

The corruption and the oppression in Beyond Good and Evil are felt clearly and quickly at the beginning of the game:

The duty of the Alpha sections is to protect every inhabitant of Hillys

During the first cinematic, the governor of planet Hillys adresses the population and warns them about the war coming against the alien DomZ but claims that thanks to the Alpha Section the planet will be safe.

However, in the fight phase after this cinematic Jade is fighting alone against DomZ aliens without any help from the Alpha Section. The armed forces come after the combat phase and humiliate Jade.

It's at this moment we realize that the Alpha Section are not as efficient as they say and a dictatorship is slowly setting up on the planet.

The Alpha Section propaganda can also be felt in the capital of Hillys thanks to several details well placed in the city:

Walls are covered by posters showing an Alpha section soldier and the word "WAR" written in a big font. These posters placed on every wall of the city remind the player about the war on planet Hillys against the DomZ but also the fact that the Alpha Section are here to protect the population.

We don't really feel protected with these posters but more oppressed by the Alpha Section, we quickly understand that the governor of the Alpha Section is trying to reassure the citizens so he can manipulate them with more ease.

Some floating giant screens are also everywhere in the city diffusing a looping propaganda video for the Alpha Section, increasing a little bit more the oppression on the player.

The game presents us the two-opposite factions that are the Alpha Section and the IRIS Network through the email gameplay mechanic. The player receives at some key times of the game an email from the government or the IRIS Network to convince him to join their faction by presenting the other faction like the liar and the manipulator.

The player lets himself be leaded by the storyline and joins the IRIS network in order to fight against the Alpha Section.

We also have the possibility to subscribe a daily newspaper in the game to get information about news on the planet, but this paper is corrupted and controlled by the governor and spreads propaganda for the Alpha Sections.

Appeal for witnesses: The IRIS Network traitors are hidden somewhere on Hillys. Large reward for any information.

THE DOMZ HAS STRUCK AGAIN. 2 days ago, in the west quarter. Without the impressive courage of the Alpha sections, the number of deaths would have been much greater. The recruitment campaign intensifies.

Open your eyes: the Alpha sections are the accomplice of the DomZ. Join the IRIS Network

Finally, in the sonorous atmosphere, the not so friendly aspect and aggressive voice of the Alpha Section and the numerous bans on freely navigating increase this oppressive sensation that the player can feel in the game.

Comparison between Beyond Good and Evil and its opposites:

It's interesting to compare Beyond Good and Evil with games where we don't embody the hero but the boss or the director of a totalitarian organisation and compare the different feels.

I chose 4 particular games for this comparison:

Syndicate

It's interesting to compare Beyond good and Evil with the game Syndicate realized in 1993 which mixes management, tactics and action. The Syndicate universe takes place in 2096 in the future, like Beyond Good and Evil, in a totalitarian society dominated by crime syndicates which rules the roost of the entire world. These syndicates are in perpetual conflict with themselves to be the one which will create a revolutionary electronic chip model that will enable control over humans.

The player plays the boss of one of these crime syndicates and will have to face the other syndicates in order to conquer the whole country through several missions. The Beyond Good and Evil and Syndicate universes are totally opposite: in the first one we embody the hero supposed to show the corruption of the planet to the population, and in the other we play the bad guy who wants to control all the humans of the world and exploit them.

In Beyond Good and Evil the player feels like the hero who has to save the world by discovering the truth while in Syndicate the player feels the power of a dark leader without pity and has the possibility to decimate and exploit a population very quickly.

Papers, Please

This kind of rebellion and denunciation reminds me of the game Papers, Please where the player plays an immigration inspector who has to judge the people who want to go through the border between two countries. In Papers, Please the player has to denounce the frauds who are trying to go through the border using faked papers.

Every examination file in Papers, Please is different and the player has to take the most fair solution. For example, the kinds of choices the player can have could be to let past someone who used fraudulent papers only 3 days ago or denounce someone who used fraudulent papers but needs to reach their children on the other side of the border at any cost.

The common points between Beyond Good and Evil and Papers, Please are the denounciation of a person or a group, and researching information on a person to make the fairest decision.

The Good, The Bad and The Accountant

It’s also possible to make a parallel between the corruption in Beyond Good and Evil and the serious game The Good, The Bad and The Accountant. In this game you will discover the different forms of corruption that a civil servant and a government officer have to manage in their municipality.

In The Good, The Bad and The Accountant you will make important choices that will make money for the town at the detriment of the inhabitants, or be honest by making the fairest choice but with the risk of being fired.

The Westport Independent

Another independent video game which speaks a lot about the censure and the corruption and for a good reason, it’s a game that talks about the media and in particular newspaper editors just after the war. In The Westport Independent you are a journalist and you work for a newspaper under an authoritarian government.

In this game it is question of propaganda and it makes you feel the pressure that a journalist endures from their boss and the government. This game allows you to discover how certain information can be deformed, arranged and narrated in such a way in order to manipulate a reader without any objectivity.

The parallel is evidently strong with Beyond Good And Evil because in that game the government of the planet manipulates the citizens with propaganda posters and giants advertising screens which praise the merit of the Alpha forces and humiliate the little rebel groups who try to fight against all the corruption of the system.

Conclusion

Beyond Good and Evil has a very well executed storyline that keeps us in suspense from the beginning to the end. The corruption and the oppression which are the main story elements are perfectly transposed in game and the players generally feels it as well.

Compare the Jade's story with opposite ones was very interesting to truly examine the different elements that makes us feel oppression and corruption or on the contrary supremacy and domination.

As a player, I really feel this oppressive ambiance during the game and this is one of the several reasons appreciate this game.