Atomic Heart's protagonist is being called one of the most insufferable characters in the history of video games, which might be a bit overblown. We still have a ways to go, but it's easy to forget just how dire video game writing used to be. Duke Nukem is mocked nowadays, but you have to remember he was once an example of good writing. My problem with player-character Sergey Nechaev, often referred to as simply P-3, is not necessarily that he's annoying or insufferable, but that he is incessantly mean in a way that fundamentally damages my enjoyment of and connection with the game. It seems to be a popular direction in modern gaming, and it has never once landed.
I don't exactly think I'm a nice person. I don't have a sunshine and rainbows vibe to me. I can be blunt, I can be direct. I think what you do and what you say matters more than how you do them and how you say them. But I don't think I'm a dick, and there's a huge gulf between not being an eternally friendly, endlessly positive, always smiling and happy nice little sugarplum and being a dick. and yet in video games we're forced to be a dick over and over again, and I can't imagine many of us enjoy it.
Atomic Heart's protagonist is in a stressful situation, and most of the world is trying to kill him - I get that he's not in the best mood. But Charles, his robotic wrist assistant, is the only one who tries to help and doesn't feel particularly annoying or intrusive, yet still gets his head bitten off every time he speaks. Or you know, a metaphor like that which works for a being with no head. Charles will provide basic information such as how to solve puzzles, and we get to scream at him or blame our many, many problems squarely on him.
It's similar to Forspoken, where our protagonist Frey interacts with her talking Cuff and often comes across as mean. However, with Forspoken Cuff will bite back, and the pair develop a spiky dynamic that pits the two as equals. They can be annoying, but when they both get barbs in that land well, they can be endearing and you can see what Forspoken is going for. P-3 just bullies Charles, as well as everyone else he meets, and there's nothing charming about it.
This is not just an issue in games. The MCU is the biggest behemoth in modern media, and it has long settled into a pattern of tropes. It's becoming harder to distinguish protagonists in Marvel movies because they all just launch into a bunch of quips one after the other. They're rarely mean, but it's so easy to get that rhythm wrong and come off harsh as your 'jokes' land with a thud, as Atomic Heart found out.
Meanwhile, on TikTok and other social media platforms, a major genre is the reaction video, which is just reacting to a different video with a video of your own. If you want to be successful in this weird medium of content creation which requires creating very little content yourself, the best pathway to success is to be snarky and mean.
As I said earlier, I don't think the solution is for everyone to be sweet as pie either, sending out positive vibes and hugging while we talk through our problems. Kratos, for example, is not a 'nice person'. He's cold and stoic, brusque with everyone he meets, relies on the intimidation of his physique to keep himself cut off from the world. When training his son, he is slow with praise and quick with lessons. But he's not a dick. He's not deliberately nasty to people, he doesn't derive a sense of machismo from being mean and snarky to everyone around him. While he doesn't go into interactions to make friends, he doesn't put other people down to inflate his sense of self-worth either.
There is a middle ground, and there can be an overcorrection. The original Lara Croft was a cool action hero, a smooth talker who was not to be messed with. She had friendly banter with her team and showed a tender reverence to her work and her family, but she came here to pillage lands and kick ass. In Shadow of the Tomb Raider, the pillaging is still there, but the interesting persona is not. While 2013's reboot saw a younger character who needed to grow into the role, that was achieved with Rise, and Shadow retreated into making Lara a kind but largely ineffectual character who offered nothing of substance.
Video games are still propped up by violent characters doing violence better than their violent enemies, and I'm not asking for that to change. At least, I’m not specifically asking for that to change right here. I don't mind bashing in faces with a hammer or shooting out metal hearts with a shotgun. I just don't want to be such a dick about it.
