On Moral Ambiguity and Player Agency — Or Lack Thereof
I'll open this thread by saying that I haven't watched the entire fourth episode, just a compilation of the endings.
Telltale's Batman: The Enemy Within started off with a solid premiere, many would tell you back when it released—many of which weren't generally so keen on Telltale's post-2016 games—which suggested that the fanbase was more excited about this game than others of this company. I would agree with them. What struck me in particular about the season (other than the decent narrative) was that it promised a certain level of moral grayness and freedom for the player to pick sides: the Agency, the GCPD, John Doe and Tiffany were all different parties, and players could choose how to balance their trust and support between each of them. Then the Pact came along and added even more entanglement.
However.
And I can't help but wonder what could've happened along the way for this to be acceptable and entirely unspoken of on the forum.
In the last scene of EP4, at one point, Amanda Waller—who was initially promised as an ambiguous figure—decides that she's going to shoot John—another character who was initially promised as an ambiguous figure—for refusing to hand over a dangerous glowing viral tube thing. A QTE pops up demanding that the player saves John. (Funnily enough this QTE is apparently triggered even if you don't do anything, very reminiscent of the Catwoman fight of S1EP1.)
My question is: why is this acceptable? Did Telltale know that 100% of players would side with John over Waller and that's why they spared themselves the tedious work of making this a choice or, you know, not doing this sequence at all? Were you guys okay with this choice being pre-made for you? Was anybody here bummed out that they couldn't let Waller pull the trigger of her glow-in-the-dark gun?
I am eager to hear your thoughts.
Comments
Personally I think it's just the fact that Batman doesn't kill his enemies. It's not about siding with Waller or not, it's just Batman's unwavering moral code won't let him stand by and let someone get shot and killed.
Mild spoilers, if you don't want stuff ruined before this part then don't read.
Thing is Bruce mostly saves everyone he can. He's not going to let John die right after John did the right thing. Secondly you can choose not to trust John, therefore be his enemy right before this scene and even during this scene. So it doesn't bother me much. There are still instances in the game where Bruce can be ruthless with pact members. Freeze is a good example. So it really just depends on the choices you take to get to that point.
You also forgetting that we still have another episode to go. Which teases a showdown between Batman and Joker.
Well, to begin with, in that ending you choose to trust John, why would you want to kill him? Unless you picked that option just to cheat him later, but if you did that, then you would have gotten a variation of the Villain ending with Bruce instead of Batman.
Then we have the fact that Batman doesn't let people die, not purposely, and yes I know it was stupid that we had the option in Ep 1 of letting people die or leave Avesta deaf, that could be explained with Batman thinking Riddler was going to kill them anyway.
Is not the first time Telltale forces decisions upon us, in Ep 3 Bruce starts a fight with Catwoman without you picking it. You need to understand that, even though we make the decisions, we didn't create Bruce, Bruce is his own character, we just move him like a puppet, but he's still is the same original Bruce with trauma about his daddy, care about the citizens of Gotham, wanting to bring justice to everyone, and such a handsome playboy.
Spoilers, spoilers!
This last scene depends on if you're tailoring your John down the path of being a Vigilante or a Villain, in which the Vigilante ending has John handing over Harley into custody and with the Villain ending having John win over Harley and going full blown villain. In order to successfully have him take down Harley, you need to have trust in him three times. Once in a carnival (which will result in the Villain ending if you don't trust him), a second time after trying to talk Harley down yourself, and a third when it seems Harley is winning over John and Waller wants to have her Agents move in, but you stop her. If you played through the episode, you'd realize from Agent Avesta that Waller has been getting much more shady with her recent actions and possible motives, and that she seems to be disregarding any sense of morality regarding these two. If you don't trust John to help talk Harley down, some of Waller's agents will flank her and she commands one to execute her point blank, but John sets off the explosives to stop them. Regarding the QTE when Waller pulls out her gun to shoot John when he says nobody should have the virus in the Vigilante path, considering your Bruce has trusted John three times to get to this point it would be extremely out of character to turn on him now and let Waller execute him. Also if you don't initate the QTE, Bruce jumps in front of John and Waller shoots him and it's game over. I think Telltale handled each ending and available options very well, and if you're able to get John on the path of villainy despite initially trusting him at the Carnival, which is a major turning point to whether you are Bruce or Batman in the final scene, you've pretty much earned it at this point.
I would really suggest you play through each ending option instead of blindly suggesting that there's a problem here. Swap between saves at different points. They're all honestly really good with different dialog that's fun to listen to.