Both body-swapping and mind-swapping are common tropes in horror and thriller genres, however, many video games rely on this swapping between characters for effective game play-through without ever being a horrifying concept to the player. If this is the case, then how are we supposed to understand when and why we are afraid of being in someone else’s body or mind?
One of my very first personal experiences with body-swapping in video games came through the form of Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy (2006). As expected from the title, this game does not utilize body-swapping to induce horror, rather, body-swapping is a mechanism by which a player must switch between characters to use each individual’s specific skills to pass a level. For example, one character might be able to build things, while another is able to jump higher than the rest. With the click of a simple button, two ghostly beams move from character to character, symbolizing a transfer of player consciousness to the desired individual. Once complete, the player inhabits a new body, while the other character becomes computer-controlled once again. Even though the player is technically swapping bodies, there is a clear and visual symbolic representation of the transfer of consciousness, indicating that this swap is player-controlled and directed.
The mechanism of changing characters in games gives players an intense amount of power and control, especially while playing Until Dawn (2015). Players switch between making decisions as eight individual young adults, choices which affect the outcome of the game later on. Players assume the consciousness of the various characters throughout different scenes, interacting with others and determining their relationships with other characters with each decision, and even shaping the personalities of the characters they inhabit as seen through the stats screen. Within this game, however, the changing of characters is not the horrific aspect, rather, the environment and results of each choice (whether in or out of your control) engender that sense of intense fear.
Body-swapping does become problematic and horrific, however, in the gameplay of the horror game Soma (2015). While playing through this game, the player feels a sense of crisis and repulsion when learning that the character they have inhabited, Simon Jarrett, has had his consciousness moved to a robotic body, and is forced to copy this consciousness at the end of the game, leaving him with a horrific ethical dilemma. In Soma, there are no game mechanisms by which to control this movement of consciousness, engendering a sense of loss for both individual control and sense of identity. Without this sense of control or understanding, players come face-to-face with the problematic aspects of body-swapping, as Simon’s consciousness simultaneously exists in a virtual heaven and a realistic apocalypse.
The ability of games to prevent or enable body and mind swapping allow us to consider serious ethical questions about identity and control. In fact, it is possible that the idea of body and mind-swapping in video games are not innately horrific in themselves, rather, it is up to the game mechanics as to whether or not the player feels as if they have control over identity and consciousness that allows us to feel this fear. Without a sense of control over the identity of the character or events of the game, the player is left with a sense of existential dread that matches what we might feel in reality if our own minds or bodies were swapped.
Bibliography
“LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy – Full Gameplay Walkthrough.” Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b02O3kNh2F4
Until Dawn Player Statistics. https://www.neogaf.com/threads/apparently-you-can-shape-the-personality-of-the-characters-in-until-dawn.1089720/
“Soma – Reflection in the Mirror.” Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Mb6HgjpjgE
Thank you for bringing in this unique topic for discussion. That our fear of being in someone else’s body comes from our existential dread is really strong when reflecting on video game Soma. One detail to add on to your article is, the power and control we have to the characters are not what we actively seek to take over, but are enforced on us: in Until Dawn, we automatically get assigned to different characters as the story goes on, and we are put into the position to make important decisions and take up the consequences; in Soma, we have no control over what avatar we play or whoever this person is but passively accept everything and realize at the end that we are a non-human figure. Just like what Ian Bryce Jones said in his video essay “Special Effectivities”, through actions we start to create a sense of identity and alliance with the avatar: we start to know how we look like, what the limits and strengths of our body are, etc. In both Until Dawn and Soma, as well as many horror games, players gradually build up this sense of identity with the avatars through their control over actions and decision-making process, but it is only until the end of the game that we came to see the dire reality: we are tricked by these games in that we are assigned to these roles and are given the illusion of control over ourselves, but at the end of the day, we are pushed to see that we really have no idea who we are, and every of our seemingly intuitive decision is ultimately monitored and controlled by the Big Brother– the game itself.
And the realization of our own powerlessness and knowing that someone is always standing behind our back to monitor us remind me of the book 1984, and this similarity between what the author describes in the book and what the games are doing to us suddenly made me feel a sense of fear.
I agree with you that the swapping of consciousness in videogames is definitely something that can be problematized. The lego star wars example you gave presents this in a very smooth and natural way, but other games might do the opposite. The ending of Soma could be an example where there is a copy of consciousness into the ark, but the videogame doesn’t transfer the player’s character and identification even though it probably can, thereby augmenting the horror of despair. It would also be interesting to consider the idea of identification in these cases, and what it does to character immersion.
Something your post makes me think about is the mechanism of control a player has (or does not have) over body swapping and how that affects the implications of a player embodying a certain character. In Until Dawn, body swapping is forced by narrative. But in Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy, body swapping can occur at the player’s will. I would disagree that body swapping gives an intense amount of power and control in Until Dawn (though I do agree in the case of Lego Star Wars). In Until Dawn, I think the narrative forcing body swapping as opposed to player agency is a factor of what contributes to making it more horrifying, as the player has a limited sense of control.