I Don't Know What I Did In Heaven's Vault

11 7月 2024

I always think of adventure and roleplaying games as a bag of magic tricks. They have narratives to unfold, but they are also games where you control character(s) and solve puzzles. This interaction creates a pleasing feeling of control (aka agency), and the systems feel responsive and attuned to the player's whims, even though everything is pre-programmed.

I enjoy testing what I'm able to do and what I can't in these kinds of games. It's fun to play Renegade in the Mass Effect trilogy and see how the story tries to explain how an asshole can still save the galaxy. It's fun to sequence break adventure games like MYST and beat the game in a few seconds.

It's bizarre to play Heaven's Vault and not know if any of my actions matter.

This science fiction game follows an archaeologist tasked with finding a missing person, only to uncover archaeological discoveries that could shake the foundation of historical knowledge. Much of the gameplay revolves around sailing the rivers of space, learning the language of the Ancients, and collecting artifacts from the ruins with a trusty robot companion.

But at its core, the game is a massive Choose-Your-Own-Adventure (CYOA) game made by a studio that has its origins in the interactive fiction community. Not only did Inkle make 80 Days (a dazzling feat of choice games), but their first games are adaptations of Steve Jackson's Sorcery! books. Suffice it to say, they're very familiar with the structure, and it's not hard to see Heaven's Vault as a refinement of their techniques.

Still, choice games (and arguably any work of interactive fiction) are illusions. They fool players into thinking they have made significant in-game choices that reshape the narrative. 80 Days is definitely massive, but the developers focused on a few arcs more than in other places. And anyway, the player can reasonably minmax their way to the finish line or any particular arc without recourse to guides.

Heaven's Vault feels like it's the opposite. As Emily Short puts it,

[it is] an interactive story in which the player experiences much less diegetic agency than she actually has. The world is full of interactive stories that use smoke and mirrors to convince you that you’ve made a difference. Heaven’s Vault frequently deceives you into thinking that you haven’t.

Unlike a lot of video games and interactive fiction, I never felt like I was in control of the narrative. Or that I was aware that the narrative was actually being manipulated. All I was doing was asking some questions, following some clues, deciphering some languages, sailing to some uncharted waters, and so on. I never felt like I was talking to a game master. I don't feel like I chose anything that mattered. Every plot development felt organic, and that confused me: I had no idea how large the game was.

At all.

Nothing feels like it matters, so paradoxically every action feels like I'm shaping my journey. Whenever I uncovered a secret in a location where I wasted minutes on the ground, I felt like I was taking a path that few players had taken. I don't know how true that is, but it certainly feels like it. I know that all my choices are valid and that any path will lead me to the end, but I still think of the places I haven't been, the characters I haven't talked to, the clues I've never picked up -- because I've been whisked away to the ending.

I can only think of what was closed off to me, and I have a hard time imagining what 100%ing this game could even look like. There were empires I never discovered, moons I never saw, etc. Which choices did what? Did I miss something? The whole game intimidated me from beginning to end because I couldn't comprehend its scope.

It may sound like I'm exaggerating for effect, but that was my whole experience playing the game: the black box nature of the game made it feel big. Someone who completed the game earlier had no idea what I was talking about because I completed the game in a very strange way. The horizons suggested by this game made this game as much as the lush setpieces and colorful dialog did.

I just loved that not knowing what I was doing was a more magical experience than completely mastering the game, and I wish more games were like that.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/774201/Heavens_Vault/

There are parts of the game that irritate me: the bizarre default refresh rate that can induce motion sickness (check the settings), the sailing (though I admit it makes the world feel big), and the flawed approach to language (I'll be writing a post on games about language and translation).

But is it safe to say that this is one of the most impressive adventure games ever made?

I think so. At the very least, it is a compelling game that made me speculate on what it could be and couldn't be. It was exciting to play Heaven's Vault: to feel like I was uncovering secrets upon secrets and redefining history and my own player experience, even though I had no fucking idea what I was doing.

That's the kind of mystery I crave in video games right now.