Both represent a strong commitment to a task which is held personally important – even vital – to those who undertake it, and which both arises from and further defines their character: an expression of their most deeply-held beliefs and values. A scientist might be on a “quest for knowledge”, a detective on a “quest for truth”. Our personal quests aren’t so hardcore, but still demonstrate deep personal significance. Our usage of “quest” in everyday English is a bit different. (Except it’s never an accident, because God.) In the Arthurian tradition the grail represents the presence of God and a life spent pursuing Christian values the knights’ search is an allegory for the pursuit of such a life. A sinful knight will fail not due to lack of ability but lack of worth, whereas a pure knight could stumble onto the Grail by accident. ![]() The quest is not simply a challenge: success or failure is a reflection of the protagonist’s self, their inner worth outwardly shown through accomplishment or failure. But the quest is almost entirely spiritual: only a knight pure of heart is capable of finding the Grail. Naturally, the quest has obstacles: there are enemies to fight, secrets to find and long distances to traverse. The premier quest narrative is probably the quest for the Holy Grail by the knights of King Arthur: a task of almost impossible difficulty. Image from Ī quest was, in the literary tradition, a grand task of great personal or spiritual significance. I don’t want to draw too firm a line between the word’s shifting meaning and its role in the form of the modern RPG, but I do feel that “quest”‘s changing connotations in videogames reflects the changing role that tasks and assignments played in that medium. Yet often they’re repetitious, predictable and by-the-numbers – and even when they’re not, the meaty quests brimming with character are often undercut by popping off to kill 10 spider rats. Quests in videogames – particularly RPGs – are promising opportunities for expression, empathy and the creation of meaning: key moments in the role-playing interface between game and player. ![]() Still, I think videogame “quests” could benefit from quest models from other media: literature, for example. This “start task, get distracted by other task, end up with a shopping list of stuff” model seems natural to videogames – perhaps because, in giving us a to-do list, the form naturally dovetails with the player’s instinct to tidy up game worlds. This juggling of quests and side-quests is, I guess, part of the form of CRPGs, set in stone by the time Bald ur’s Gate came along (1998) but present in games quite a bit earlier: you see similar plot/task juggling in, for example, the first-person CRPG Betrayal at Krondor (1993), just on a smaller scale. But I do think it leaves a lot to be desired, since it widens the rift between the player, their avatar and the game world. ![]() and just because a character would act a certain way in one medium doesn’t mean we should crowbar players into acting that way in games. But what’s weirder is that this is normal for us. And my problem with it isn’t so much that our heroes act in unheroic ways (“I’ll do my chores, then save the world”) – after all, games are not film etc. It’s weird that my priorities were “Do odd chores, then do vital Jedi stuff”. Surely it should have been my number one priority? But I wasn’t at all surprised that it was literally the last thing I did – after working through everything else on my to-do list. Replaying Knights of the Old Republic recently I received an important quest: investigate an ominous grove infested with dark energy, a focus of evil drawing things to the dark side. We’ve all been there, whether the game du jour was a Fallout, an Elder Scroll or an Assassin’s Creed, where icons dot the map like tempting candy – or pepper it like buckshot.
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