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If you haven’t seen this series yet, do so. Now. Right now.
As a rather keen RPG fan, I have a tendency to see many things that I really like and think “Wow, that would make an awesome RPG.” The problem is, after thinking about it carefully, I come to the conclusion that most simply would not work. I’m not saying that series like Game of Thrones couldn’t work as role-playing games- indeed, they most certainly could- but given what we’ve seen of the lacklustre attempts at video-games set within that world, apparently there is simply too much lore to tackle to attempt a real role-playing experience. When I say ‘real’, I mean a game in which you create a character and you live that character, fitting into their shoes and making the story you play their own. There is one particular universe I would love to see a game set within, not only because I am mad for the series it is based in, but because I can honestly seeing it work; I am talking about the universe of Joss Whedon’s Firefly.
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Malcolm Reynolds is probably one of my favourite TV show characters ever… probably because of Nathan Fillion
If you aren’t aware of Firefly- and you should endeavour to rectify such an error- it was a 2002 TV show that later had a few comic books and a film, Serenity, in 2005 and was far too short lived: it was cancelled by the Fox network before the first season had even come to any real conclusion. The story followed Malcom Reynolds, the captain of the Firefly-class ship Serenity, and his band of lovable rogues as they endeavoured to smuggle goods and do good deeds in a galaxy which had been overcome by the Union of Allied Planets after a rough civil war in which Mal was involved. The best way to describe Firefly would be a sci-fi western; the series had spaceships and laser-weapons, and a few futuristic planets and settings, but often took place on wild, half-barren planets with towns and people that could easily have been in Deadwood. Seeing Mal chase a man in a hover-car while riding on a horse, dodging laser blasts, was something that I feel could quite encapsulate the series. It really was a fantastic series, and in this world I think you could very easily fit a video game.
The concept isn’t so hard to grasp. Imagine creating your character, a rogue smuggler or hired gun on a Rim planet, who ends up getting caught up in a series of events that brings your character up against the Alliance and, after a series of tutorial missions on the starting planet, you would choose from a number of basic ship models, pick up a crew member or two and set off around the ‘Verse. I imagine that the ship could operate like the Ebon Hawk from the Knights of the Old Republic series of games, a place to chat with the crew members you would pick up via story missions and side-quests and build up friendships or romances with them.
I imagine that an entire galaxy would be something quite daunting for any developer to tackle, but it could hold a huge wealth of material for them to tackle. Obviously you couldn’t be able to fly the ship from planet to planet- it would take far too long if done realistically- but perhaps if there was some kind of choice system implemented with plotting your course; you might have to watch your fuel reserves, and occasionally, you may have to make a mid-flight course correction to avoid Alliance patrols- if you do, you could run out of fuel and become stranded, which could cause a heap of problems and negative consequences, but if you don’t, you may have to battle well-equipped Alliance ships and risk arrest. Really, simply clicking planets and saying “go here” doesn’t have to be as boring as games make it out to be, and could be an interesting point of the game. Want to go to a Core world and do some high-reward smuggling operations? Well, you might not be able to until you do some work on some of the dull, western Rim worlds to build up cash and fuel enough to make the trip.
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I have a special love for the Firefly class ship. Even with its early 2000s CG.
The gameplay could very easily just take a leaf out of, say, Mass Effect 3’s boots, e.g. the cover mechanics and squad command system. Obviously, people have done that sort of thing before, but I do have a love for BioWare, and another reason I will get to. In Whedon’s world, there aren’t really people with magical powers or psychic abilities- at least, not to the extent were they could be used in combat- but that doesn’t mean skill trees and points can’t be used effectively; after all, you could easily include experience and levels and choose to have your characters specialise, perhaps in engineering skills, or marksmanship, or close-quarters combat; an RPG doesn’t have to include magic, or space-magic (which everyone knows Biotics were).
The reason I mentioned BioWare is because, out of all the developers I have played games by, I believe that they should be the ones to do it. They already have proven experience with science-fiction games- i.e. Mass Effect- and they have good gameplay and spectacular dialogue and characterisation in their games. If I want a game that involves plenty of well-built, interesting characters, with an immersive conversation system to properly flesh out the world of Firefly, I would like to leave it in BioWare’s hands. I just know that people will disagree with that, but really, for me, they would be the perfect choice.
One thing I would not want to see is the companions to simply turn into bland copy-pastes of the characters from Firefly. Yes, Shepherd Book was awesome. Yes, Jayne was something of a badass. I do not want to see them in a game. I don’t mind if people are similar to them, because I understand that they may be used as inspiration for characters. I do not, however, want to find that my ship suddenly has a brother and sister runaway team running from the Alliance. I want some new, fleshed out characters with their own story arcs, their own backstories and even originality to make them feel legitimate. I would, of course, by no means object to cameo appearances by the cast of Firefly during the game; I know this would probably be objectionable for most of the fans of the series, but I just love Nathan Fillion. I can’t help myself.
I could probably go into much more detail about why the game would work and what would be needed to make it, but I just wanted to speculate. Perhaps you agree with me, perhaps you don’t, comment and tell me why. I just think that- and this may be because I don’t really want Serenity to be the end of it all- a Firefly video-game, in particular an RPG, would be a really great game, if done right.
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I liked the film, indeed I did… but I want more. Lots more.