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U of A master's student examines the 'daddening' of video games
www-cbc-ca.cdn.ampproject.org
Gone are the days of the lone protagonist in video games, fighting his way toward glory or to save the love of his life.
Now, several video games centre around a rugged father figure whose sole mission in life is to protect his offspring.
This new storyline is evident in video games like Red Dead Redemption, The Walking Dead and The Last of Us. The live-action series of The Last of Us is currently being filmed in Edmonton and Calgary.
Kaitlyn Ensley, a digital humanities student at the U of A, had this new storyline as a subject of interest for her master's thesis.
Ensley said she believes what video-game journalist Stephen Totilo called the "daddening" of video games stems from developers' own personal experiences.
The fathers in all these video games share common features; straight, white, brawny men — a consequence, Ensley said, of game developer leads being straight, white men.
The dads often have traumatic pasts that stem from their careers in the army, police or other militia.
They seek redemption while putting their lives on the line for their only child in a dangerous post-apocalyptic or dystopian — or some sociopolitical-disaster — world.
There is also a redemption arc where the dad figure is trying to redeem a past mistake, sometimes to do with his kids, Ensley said.
In The Last of Us, the protagonist takes on responsibility for a young girl after his own daughter dies.
Mothers are almost always absent.
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