8 Video Game Cliches that Need to Die
The Chosen One
You are the hero of legend, the savior destined by prophecy to fight off evil and save the world. Sound familiar? Well that’s probably because that description could be used to describe countless games. Protagonists that fulfill some sort of prophecy is a cliche that is so overdone in gaming that the words are enough to make your eyes roll.
When a character is destined from birth to be a hero, it takes away much of the narrative stakes. They are the hero and their victory is inevitable. End of story. There’s a reason we latch onto the Batman and Iron Man characters, people who are unlikely heroes and had to work to get where they are. When it’s just handed to them and their success is a foregone conclusion, it’s hard to get invested.
While this is another trend that seems to be less popular in modern times, it still feels like it occurs more often in games than in other mediums. Even games like Dragon Quest and Legend of Zelda who cement their identities in the concept could be made more interesting if they changed the formula a bit and broke the cliche.
We like characters that earn their success, but we’ll take Zelda being the hero of legend for once if that’s all we can get. It would be something different at least.
