Spoilers and depiction of crude violence, mention of suicide.

I usually play Metal Gear Solid V (Kojima Productions, Konami, 2015) once a year for a few hours. I love how slick moving feels, how responsive Snake is. I also love toying with the enemy soldiers: when I approach a camp, I scan it to know if there are useful soldiers, with good stats for my base. The other ones are killable. Worthless: I can have fun with these ones. It usually means I shoot at them, attract them somewhere, go around them and stab them in the back. I treat them as toys, whereas the useful ones, I see them as tools to progress. Sometimes, when the useless soldiers are hurt, I fulton them, knowing that they have a chance of dying in the process. It doesn't matter anyway: they would die if I let them on the ground. Usually, though, I don't have to pass them through the trial by fulton: I shoot them enough or just headshot them. However, my feelings about said headshots are ambivalent. They feel satisfying: the sound is clear, the enemy topples backwards, blood splatters. Congrats, is saying the game, you've just achieved a precise shot! Yes, but... what I hear is that their head just cracked open. My bullet just made it pop. The game has no dismemberment, so their head is still there, with some blood where my bullet touched. Their face is still mostly intact, just bloodied, covering some of their features. I feel nauseous. Why is that?

It's not the most disturbing thing the game threw at me. I shall be really explicit there to make my point. I saw civilians being killed. Children being the subject of experiments, dying. I saw people's throat being cut, a woman's belly cut open to remove a bomb, intestines exposed, and soldiers being burnt, screaming in pain.

But that sound of the headshot, it's still there, in my head. I did it. I ended someone's life for my enjoyment. It felt good, until it did not anymore. MGS V is clearly a game against war, against violence. Yes, you have hundreds of weapons at your disposal. But when you kill someone, a hidden morality system counts it. Kill too much and you'll be covered in blood, a horn on your head. Save soldiers on the field, and they'll help you progress through the game. Kill Quiet the sniper and you'll lose a powerful ally. In one of the most disturbing sequence of the game, you have to kill your own crew because it is infected by a virus. Some don't understand. Some are happy to see you as they think you'll save them. Some are glad you'll end their suffering. On the radio, a guy you saved earlier is horrified by what you do. Each time you kill someone, the game informs you that you're losing some points. Killing is bad. Don't kill. The message is clear but killing is made fun. You have to prevent yourself from doing it. You have to stay just, ethical. Else you suffer the consequences of your actions.

So, is the sound of the headshot made disturbing by design? Probably. And satisfying? Probably too. It would not be the first time sound is used that way. You can convey a lot with sound. For the beta of an FPS (I'm not sure about this anecdote, however), the development team used sounds of real people dying to make the game more realistic. The results were clear: players stopped killing as it was too disturbing. Games aren't usually realistic: it would cost too much, would make the game too slow. But they sometimes try to feel realistic, or rather: plausible. It's the difference between Call of Duty (Activision) and Red Orchestra (Tripwire interactive). Yes, there's blood spurting a bit in CoD, but that is all. Even in Rainbow Six: Siege (Ubisoft Montreal, Ubisoft, 2015), where blood splatters the walls and floor, it still feels gamey: the characters don't really react to it. If you're too low on health points, the colours will be desaturated. The important part is "HP". In these games, you have a set number of HP, go below that and you're dead. You choose your weapons based on damage per second or accuracy, and that is all. The enemies are considered obstacles to overcome. However, in R6:S, you only have one life per round, whereas you respawn almost immediately in CoD. What difference does it make? Your life has more weight in R6:S, you feel more threatened, when in CoD, it's a minor annoyance.

That's where RO comes again. I remember seeing another player explode right before me because of a grenade or shell, it's limb flying to my right. My vision became black and white, I immediately dropped to the ground, shaking, shocked. I felt in danger. In another game, I was alone on a control point. I knew enemies were coming, so I prepared myself. I readied my weapon and hoped that my allies would come soon enough because I could not win alone: I was going to die, but I had to hold that point for as long as possible. I heard running sound. An enemy appeared, I shot him, another one came in, shot me and that was the end of it. I felt in danger again. In that game, a shot usually means death. I remember an enemy fleeing before my light machine gun, afraid. I remember waiting for smokes to advance, only to wait for an enemy light machine gun to stop his suppressive fire. I was afraid a bullet would hit me. In this game, the stakes are high, so you feel more connected to your avatar. The respawn time is a bit longer, and you have to run for hundreds of meters to come back to the frontline. You feel fragile.

On the contrary, when I play Apex Legends (Respawn Entertainment, Electronic Arts, 2019), there's no blood (or if there is, I've not perceived it), just numbers going up my enemies when I shoot at them. Everything in that game makes me think that, well, it's a game. From the quirky finishing moves to kill someone to the funny lines the characters are constantly saying, from the fact that there are multiple instances of the same character on the map to the context of the game, which seems to be some kind of game in itself: you fight to become a legend/champion, there are banners showing the "kill leader"... I am immersed in the game's mechanics, but don't feel empathy. Although this game is considered violent (pegi 16), I don't feel like it is. Sure, I will have to fight and kill to, hopefully, win, but the violence feels disconnected from the way it is presented in the game. For all that matters, the guns could spray ink or rubber darts, I would not see a difference (except for the sound, which is important in the game as it conveys punch to your actions and gives away your position because it echoes a lot). I feel like I'm playing a game in a game.

Empathy seems really important there. If I can feel empathy towards a video game character, I suppose I will have trouble killing them. That's one of the reason many enemies in video games wear glasses, scarfs high on their face, or just plain masks. The designers don't want the player to feel bad for killing them. They deprive them of humanity so that we have fun killing them. That's why I'm not sure I will continue playing Far Cry 3 (Ubisoft Montreal, Ubisoft, 2012): when I stab an enemy, an action rewarded by the game with more experience, I see their horrified eyes, full of pain. And that disturbs me. The interesting part is that my character is supposedly horrified too to have to kill people. At the beginning at least, as he grows out a strong warrior, not moved by killing. If I go on, will I be like him too, will I see the enemies as AIs I can toy with?

I should think not. They're too human for me, at least when I see them close. In Spec Ops: The Line (Yager Development, 2K games, 2012), I had to make a choice. It was a nauseating one. This game in general is nauseating, but this one was the most difficult. The worst part is that the game usually doesn't tell you explicitly that you have a choice. In one scene, an angry crowd was sending rocks at my squad and I and prevent us from going forward. We were armed. The answer was simple: shoot above the mob to scatter it. I know I could've shot them directly, though. But this time, it was different. Some guy had decided to steal people's supplies, probably resulting in their death, but had been stuck under his truck, which was burning. He was an arsehole. If I decided to leave him, he would most likely die in the fire. A horrible death. Did he deserved it? I had a weapon, I could put an end to his suffering. A merciful act? I think. I'm not sure, to this day. I did it nonetheless. I feel bad for it. But I could not save him anyway for the game had not included this option, the one I would have chosen if this situation was real. So yeah, I hesitated, took my gun and shot him in the head. I hope he died immediately. I walked away, feeling bad. Spec Ops: The Line was a game I knew would be taxing, so I had waited until I felt ready and well enough. I remember a review of the game saying that, upon finishing the game, they cried and started again to stop playing before all the atrocities were done, so that they could imagine the game ended there. I understand that.

Empathy seems the key to understand why sometimes violence makes me sick. When I can relate to someone, I'm more touched by what happens to them. Seems logical enough. So if a robot in Nier: Automata (PlatinumGames, Square Enix, 2017) commits suicide, I feel empathy towards them as they're shown to be capable of emotions and thoughts. But I can feel empathy for animals or monsters too, as they also have emotions and feel things. That is another reason why I may not continue playing Far Cry 3: you've gotta kill animals to progress. Yes, they're not real, I know, but I feel empathy towards them – except when they bug out and I feel like they're just bits of code.

However, my ability to empathise changed over the years. Some time ago, I was always immersed in games, and often frightened. I thus worked on it and managed to make me know that I'm just playing, that it's not real. When I first played R6:S, I could not play for more than 2 or 3 matches, as it was too stressful. I felt nauseous because of adrenaline. Now I can play for hours, until I'm bored. This seemed to have affected my ability to relate to other real beings and feel emotions in general. I worked on it and now I feel empathy and often bad. I prefer it that way.

I can even feel empathy for a plush, for instance in a film like Inside Out (Pixar Animation Studios, Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, 2015). You know which one. It is quite clearly characterised as having thoughts and emotions, and I felt bad when it passed away. Films too can draw me in and hurt me. When I saw Ran (Kurosawa, Toho, 1985), the sheer amount of blood covering the walls of the fortress, as well as its colour, hinted that it was fake, but still, I felt sick upon seeing it. So many deaths for nothing. I was drawn in. This process is not continuous, however. Just like in Far Cry 3, sometimes I recall it's all fiction and feel detached. Boredom often does that. Sometimes, paintings and photos do that to me too. Otto Dix's paintings come to my mind, but they're not the only ones.

This works for books too. Recently, I read The Way of Kings (Sanderson, Tor Books, 2010). I felt the hopelessness of one of the characters, the injustice he suffered, I imagined being in the situation of the bridgemen who have to run unarmoured towards enemy archers and that made me feel terrible. I was also frightened when one of the characters drew a figure that was not there, made of impossible shapes. I could not focus on imagining the scene: it was too horrifying. Cosmic horror, that was. The same situation occurred in To the Victors Go the Spoils (Gagner la guerre, Jaworski, Les moutons électriques, 2009), where the main characters did crimes after crimes, but not before being tortured to increase our empathy towards him. It was sometimes almost unbearable to read, especially the 3rd time I read the novel, when I was fully aware of the issues with characters and able to feel empathy. Something similar happened when I re-read 2666 (Bolaño, Editorial Anagrama, 2004). As I knew what was to come – the depiction of more than a hundred crimes – I dreaded to read it. But I did. It was a terrible experience. Nauseous again. Feeling unsafe.

So, my imagination is enough to make me feel empathy. I felt bad when I nuked a city in Civilization V (Firaxis games, 2K games, 2010), because I killed hundreds of civilians, which are not even present in the game, except in an abstract way. I felt bad as I saw radiated fields. The consequences of my actions were being shown to me, indirectly. I killed thousands of people with a single button press, and I probably starved to death thousands more. The game did not acknowledge it, but I felt it, imagined it, thanks its mechanics, as abstract and far from the ground as they are. I imagined and felt the horrors of war.

I did the same thing for real wars. Recently, I read about Rojava and Afghanistan. Imagining the lives of the civilians amidst war almost made me panic. I feel anxious as I write these lines and try not to imagine too much how they feel – threatened, afraid, hurt. I try not to imagine being in that situation, which would make me collapse. I feel I can't do anything to help these people, and that hurts me. Why do people hurt each other? Why can't we leave happily together? Why can't we cooperate?

The worst thing is that I know why. I'm a human, I have empathy, I tried to understand these subjects. I tried to understand the mindset of a soldier a fascist, a rapist. It was easy – except for my psyche. Why is that? Is it because it's a habit of my species? Or did I just saw and read so many things about these subjects that I understand them? I don't know, I hope it's the latter, though that would be an issue in itself. It would mean we are more exposed to violence than cooperation, and maybe, because of that, more prone to violence than cooperation.

I feel bad when I hurt someone, be it a mosquito or a human, even plants sometimes. I want to care, not to hurt. I want to heal, not to injure. I can't live in a world where violence is the way to go. I can't live in a world where policemen shoot people, I couldn't even see the video of that. Just thinking about it is too much. Seeing it would me make have nightmares. But can I live in a world where art shows violence? Where video games are violent in the way they make me interact with other beings, even if they're just AIs? How can I change the way I interact with video games and real people so that the world I want to live in exist? Because if we stop playing violent video games, maybe they won't be created anymore. Maybe if we stop being exposed to violence, stop normalising it, we will be more prone to help each other. Maybe if we see more examples of cooperation, we'll find it normal too. I don't want to be desensitised to violence, I want to feel awfully bad when exposed to it, so that I will try my best to ensure it won't happened again, ever.

Should l I change the way I play MGS V?

8/10