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The brand new looter shooter RPG is proving to be a tonne of fun. The Unreal 5 powered graphics look stunning, the aesthetic of the alien landscapes is intricate, and the character design is original. Oh, and the evil overlord of the hostile enemy race is a bloke called Greg.
The name fun doesn’t end there either. Your sassy squad leader has the similarly blokish name, Jeremy, while the all-powerful all-knowing shady intelligence corporation is called Colon. The names of the heroes you get to play start off better, with the likes of Yujin and Viessa better suiting the sci-fi fantasy aesthetic of the world. Even here things aren’t perfect though, with the supposedly badass tank main going by the name of Kyle. What’s next – A warlock king called Chad? A fighter pilot ace called Ashleigh?
All joking aside, it is a curious move by the developers to have such peculiar and almost comically normal names in a world where everything else, from the weaponry, to the dialogue, to the storyline, is so heightened. Unsurprisingly it has been raising a few eyebrows and causing some discourse among the community.
Speaking personally, I don’t mind it. I do understand the arguments some make that it means it’s harder to maintain your suspension of disbelief, and so to fully engage in the world of the story. Speaking personally, however, I don’t play these looter shooter games to lose myself in a piece of storytelling. That’s not to say the story aspect of the game is meaningless to me. It serves its purpose – as a break from the button, mashing to admire some beautiful cut scenes and to add some stakes and motivation to the missions that make up the gameplay. However, it’s this gameplay that I am primarily focused on.
Having the first boss be a super evil alien villain called Greg feels like a nod of self-awareness from the writers. It’s a purposefully over-the-top game and I like that it can be self-aware of that. That’s assuming that it is purposeful of course. It is also possibly just a result of the localisation from the game’s original Korean version, with the company behind it, Nexon, being founded in Seoul and based in Tokyo.
Either way, most players will just chalk it up to a quirk of a game that is ultimately proving to be fun and popular. What’s more, I reckon most players would rather they sort out the stuttering and crashing before they get round to rechristening any NPCs.
