![]() ![]() Instead, the player is shocked when they break through the barriers and discover that Grant and Asher have already chosen to commit suicide, averting the expected boss fight at the top of the tower. The build-up is immense, and the narrator’s commentary primes the player for a revelation. As the player proceeds ever closer to the heart of the city and encounters a few other moments of LGBTQ representation done right even as the world goes wrong. There is a blink-and-you-miss-it subtlety to Grant’s relationship with Asher, his second-in-command and lover, who pleads with Red to understand their good intentions in unleashing the Process. So begins the journey through Cloudbank to find the leader of the Camerata, Grant Kendrell. The Transistor doesn’t have all the answers, but he knows who does. The narrative voice of Red’s companion primes the player for a quest to save the city. Here is the unlikely hero: a woman, a singer, voiceless but not powerless. What is harder to notice, especially during one’s first play through the game, is Transistor’s subversion of traditional narrative tropes. But the Transistor is not the enemy here-he has a close relationship to Red, which is slowly revealed as they travel together, and he tries to support her as she confronts the Camerata. It is a joy to play a woman character who has her own agency and makes her own decisions in a genre that is sorely lacking in nuanced female protagonists. She’s the hero now, and despite being voiceless, that one action has established her agency as distinct from the Transistor’s narrative guidance. “You turned left.” And so Red has, in a cutscene without the player’s input. And, thanks for the lift.” Moments later, he is taken aback. In an effort to keep Red safe early in the game, the Transistor guides her to a motorcycle, their intended escape vehicle. Transistor takes all this and tosses it out. In some ways, it is the narrator who is really in control, with the player character’s agency ceded to the narrator’s greater knowledge. Gamers grow used to following the cues of the trustworthy narrator, who directs them to the next significant plot point. The guiding narrator is not a new feature, either often, the hero needs instruction on their quest through an unfamiliar fantasy land, and using a wiser narrator character as opposed to disembodied text onscreen better retains the player’s immersion. ![]() His narration fills the space left by her missing voice throughout the game, and by reacting to events and commenting upon the rich scenery, he renders Cloudbank familiar to the player. He compels the player to move around as Red, calls out to her, and lays out an initial course of action: flee the city. ![]() In its place is the Transistor (voiced by the talented Logan Cunningham), the voice of her male companion who has been absorbed by the sword. Given this history, it can feel disheartening to find Red deprived of her voice from the very start of the game. When player characters do have a distinct personality and point of view, they are almost always male. Usually, this is a step up from the ubiquitous white male hero female protagonists remain a rarity, however. These range from whichever races occur in that particular fantasy world to a choice of preferred weaponry or battle style. ![]() One only has to glance at a list of the most popular speculative games to find customization options galore. Many games nowadays still reflect this in their development. With a silent protagonist, interactions with non-player characters and participation in game events aren’t sullied by a reaction from the player character that the player disagrees with. Meant to be ‘everyman’-type heroes that the ‘typical’ gamer can relate to, a silent protagonist allows for deeper immersion into a richly developed speculative world. In fact, he-and it usually is a he-is somewhat of a feature, especially within the genealogy of fantasy and sci-fi role playing games. The silent protagonist is nothing new in role-playing video games. Together, they go searching for answers from the Camerata, a shadowy administrative organization in Cloudbank. She is accompanied by the eponymous Transistor, her giant talking sword, which-surprise, surprise-she has also acquired under mysterious and tragic circumstances. Players take the role of Red, an unyielding singer-turned-heroine who has lost her voice under mysterious circumstances. The game is set in a gorgeously rendered futuristic city named Cloudbank, whose districts are being devoured by a strange technological force called the Process. It may be a cliché, but it definitely holds true with indie game developer Supergiant Games’ 2014 sophomore release, the sci-fi action role-playing game Transistor. ![]()
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