We Are Chicago, “[a] first person narrative-driven adventure game using real stories” published by Culture Shock in 2017, narrates the life of Aaron, an African American teenager living in south side Chicago, who is one week away from his high school graduation.[1]
The game description of We Are Chicago on steam introduces the game as so: [2]
You are harassed at school, your friends are avoiding you, and you need to make sure your sister is safe from the dangers that surround you. You've only got a week before high school graduation and everything seems to be falling apart. How will you respond and can you hold your friendships and family together for one more week? Explore the life of Aaron growing up on Chicago's south side as you find out who to trust and how to stay safe. Over the course of a week you must stand up to violence, grow closer to your family and friends, and discover more about yourself and the world around you.
We Are Chicago ambitiously intended a serious message, but does it actually fulfill the objectives described? The game tells a compelling story about Aaron’s story and the stories of residents of Chicago’s south side. However, I’ll argue that it does so more through non-interactive elements and less through interactive elements. There seems to be considerable dissonance between the narrative and lack of interactivity of the game.
First, I’ll share a few non-interactive elements that craft very compelling narrative for me. I like the game’s realistic setting. The streets are particularly reminiscient of the streets near our campus and immediately drag people into the world of Chicago’s south side. An add-on is the street-specific mechanism of avoiding suspicious people. I have similar saftey practices when I walk in Chicago, though I’m walking in the safer downtown area. I tend to avoid all people with the slightiest suspicious look and am always scared when I accidentally run into someone at a corner. This mechanism can be more impactful if the streets are more populated (an idea interesting enough for a stand-alone game).
Another powerful element is the immersiveness. The game’s story and background dictates that the characters are African American. Such an environment alone has a great impact on me, who is accustomed to an all-Asian environment or a diverse yet primarily white environment. Surrounded by African American family and friends, the player starts to feel as if they were a part of the community. A lot of details enhance such immersiveness, such as Aaron’s broken phone screen when he messages, and the cute nickname for his sister, “Taylor Tot”. Gangster is no longer the abstract reference on news but becomes a hyper-reality when your cousin get shot by gangs and your friends join gangster and even rob your work place. The players get to know gangster teenagers as real people, who struggle to find a way out of their troubled life and eventually turn to gangster for quick money.
We Are Chicago tells a touching story, but it is not a powerful game. The only interactivity afforded by the game is trivial dialogue choices that do not have any real impact on the storyline, putting dishes and utensils on the table, and helping customers order fast food. The interactivity only serves to put the player into Aaron’s life but does not give the player any agency. Sticking to a single storyline to highlight the lack of choice for residents in Chicago’s south side can be a good strategy. However, this also makes the character Aaron feel dead inside, a human-looking machine that blindly follows the algorithm of the game. As suggested by Ian Bryce Jones, “[w]hat if there was a system in place where you had to choose between making a few more bucks working your boring job, studying for your finals, or helping your sister Taylor study for hers?”[3] I agree with Jones. By giving the player an illusion of agency and a level of interactivity, the game will put the player further in the shoes of Aaron and better convey its message that whatever choices you make, you can’t escape the systemetic problems of Chicago’s south side.
A more important critique is the lack of interactivity between Aaron and his environment. Aaron seems to be detached from his environment. Description of We Are Chicago on steam anticipate that the player, as Aaron, will face challenges including avoiding being harassed at school, trying to amend friendship with friends who are avoiding you, protecting sister Taylor from dangers, keeping the family from falling apart, and successfully graduating from your high school. Yet, in fact, none of the challenges are there. Harassment disappears naturally. The player is never responsible for Aaron’s friendship. We simply avoid getting in touch with James and witness Robert killing Justin. As Jones suggests, Aaron is truly an “outsider”, lucky enough to be exempt from all the gangster troubles, while his friends Robert and Justin are the suffering ones[3]. Not only is there a lack of action, but also a lack of understanding. We know little about Robert and Justin and Aaron rarely have deeply personal conversations with his friends as well. Aaron is given the responsibility of protecting Taylor, but the player is not actually responsible. Taylor can watch Robert shooting Justin at a ridiculously close distance and stays safe, because the game tells a pre-programmed algorithmic story instead of an interactable story. The family is also very close-knit and does not need the player to worry about. Similarly, Aaron will always graduate and the player cannot contribute in any way.
We Are Chicago immerses the player into a dangerous and high-pressure environment, but only does so on the surface level. The real weight and responsibility do not fall on the player but on the game’s algorithmic characters: James’ sister died and his family fell apart so the player can feel such pressure without seeing Taylor dying or their family falling apart. Robert and Justin felt no hope for their future and joined the gangster so the player can graduate and try to persuade his friends to follow the right path. Aaron’s cousin got shot so the player does not have to get shot.
It may be argued that We Are Chicago tries to convey a sense of hope by creating such a lucky main character and irresponsible role for player. But what is this hope, when it is merely a result of hopelessness beared by your friends and distant family members?
[1] https://wearechicagogame.com/ [2] https://store.steampowered.com/app/414330/We_Are_Chicago/ [3] https://intermittentmechanism.blog/2017/03/31/we-are-chicago/
I agree with your argument that while the game feels physically immersive, Aaron’s character feels dissociated from the community the game is trying to represent. As you mention, Aaron’s character doesn’t have the ability to influence the people close to him or affect change on the community around him. Instead, he ends up being more of a bystander. It’s like the player is helping Aaron avoid violence and danger in the community, but only Aaron. The game then ends up portraying the South Side in this negative light, and fails to address the greater underlying issues which are causing the unrest in the community, such as the systemic inequalities rooted in Chicago legislature and the history of the South Side. The game is somewhat ideological—Aaron being a bystander is reflective, I feel, of the audience the game was trying to target—that is, people not from South Side Chicago or similar lower-income urban environments in the US, and also people who are not Black or African-American. The player has not necessarily lived the experiences represented in the game, making them an outsider, and while they enter this community in-game, they still play the character of someone who is also detached from these experiences, so once again, the player ends up just watching, feeling a bit sad, but not actually learning a new perspective or what they can do to enact any true change.