Austin Grossman - You

It was only when the guards were dead that I realized I was still speaking into the microphone, addressing more than two hundred people. It looked like a few more audience members were slipping in and sitting at the back. Were people already gossiping about this? And what had I been saying this whole time?

“…which is why the old gods never returned to the city.” That sounded wildly off-topic, but at least it wasn’t offensive. The rooftop was empty. From there we could see the whole city, which was divided by a broad canal.

But by the time I climbed all the way down to the street, a red-and-white-cloaked city guardsman had already spotted me. The guardsmen were deliberately overpowered and more or less telepathic in their ability to coordinate and respond to citywide alarms. They had to be, otherwise players would hang around robbing the city merchants blind.

“As you can see, there’s a fully explorable landscape. The city is a living ecosystem.” I sprinted down the narrow cobblestone street toward the canal ahead. A merchant’s wagon blocked the way.

“Just going to—okay—kill this guy a second.” More hilarity as a merchant’s headless body stumbled and fell. What was wrong with these people? The wagon rolled a little way forward onto the bridge, but it didn’t quite line up, and one of its wheels was left hanging in space.

“Check it out, rigid-body physics in real time,” I said limply. I didn’t know what it meant.

I scrambled over the cart as the AI guards arrived. Why was the cart on fire? In a few seconds it had set the wooden bridge on fire and one of the guardsmen, too.

I was running out of features to point out that were not on fire, so I stood and let them all see the caravan slowly tipping, then tumbling slowly over into the canal. It fell correctly, thanks be to Crom—I thought of the many, many rehearsals in which objects had hung in midair, or bounced like beach balls, or leaped into the sky and out of sight. The cart began to float downriver, and the fire went out properly. I hoped somebody noticed and cared.

I checked the clock—how had this demo run only eight minutes? The palace was only a few blocks away, but that was a long twenty seconds to fill.

“So—the, uh, Heroes of Endoria are never far. Waiting, watching. All your favorites will indeed appear in Realms of Gold VII: Winter’s Crown .”

Silence in the room.

“Ahem. Note how the sound of footsteps changes when the character goes from cobblestone to mud to wood. Recorded specially.”

The palace, at last, was lit up with carriages waiting in front, liveried servants at attention. It was a fairy-tale scene and not at all on fire.

“And you’re right on time! This invitation will get us in… and you can see that marble texture is slightly reflective. The ceremony is just beginning and they’re calling for the jewel, which is—I checked—safe in your inventory.”

The king was speaking to the assembled courtiers and the princess herself.

“It is our pleasure to invite whoever may come forward to redeem the grandest Jewel of Ahr, our Gem Imperial. Does anyone in this room possess it or have knowledge of what has become of… aaargh!”

The city watch wasn’t even permitted to enter the palace, which made it so especially odd when one of them murdered the flagged-unkillable king with an enormous black runesword. It was the Mournblade bug, and it had been throwing this demo off from the beginning.

“What—what is this foul assassination you witness? We must take our revenge,” I said in a hopeless attempt to pivot the narrative midstream. I wasn’t really a role player, much less an improv actor. I wasn’t actually sure what I said next as the king went down and the watchman began painting the back half of the presentation hall red with noble blood spatters. Then the guard spontaneously collapsed, hit points zeroed out, and the sword was taken up by the next passing unarmed AI in combat mode. I wasn’t really aware of too much that happened for the next ten seconds other than trying in vain to talk over the near-deafening levels of hilarity in the room. By the time a demented lady-in-waiting was pursuing me through the Emerald Gallery with her cursed obsidian blade, I was hard put to pull the narrative threads together into anything passably genre-normative.

The canal ran under the palace windows, cool and inviting. Providentially, I could see the floating cart I had tipped in the water earlier. Shortly, I was being borne away on the current through merciful calm, screams fading in the distance.

“There’s the water. Specular highlights—see the way the flames reflect? And the moon there,” I said.

“So at this point we’re halfway through the game. We’ve come pretty far in our quest to go find a picture of a crown for no reason other than whatever backstory there is. Does anyone even know it? You’re spending twenty hours to get a crown that doesn’t even affect gameplay.

“Why do you want it? Do you care what happens to any of these people? I mean, Jesus, you killed your own henchman just to get a Helm of Water Breathing. Just to level up so you could get into the Thieves Guild.”

The city drifted past, windows glowing orange-yellow against a black sky. The alarm cries of the guards paced me, then fell behind. What now? Standing on a floating wagon wasn’t exactly next-gen gameplay.

“The river takes you through the heart of the city,” I explained. There was some time to fill. “Then down into the sewer system, farther and farther from the mess you made back in the world aboveground.”

The bridge had stopped burning, but the screen still showed a straight line of white smoke climbing into the sky. The canal felt like the loneliest place in the world.

We were in the sewers; no one had expected them to show at E3. No one should be seeing this part. They looked good enough; Matt had at least textured them properly. The audio system modulated background noise into slightly musical echoes. We needed a little narrative.

“Farther from the dead guards and the jewel you lost, and the princess who was waiting for you. Farther from home, farther from your roommate, who doesn’t do the dishes, farther from your body, getting softer with each passing year. Overhead, the night sky is pierced by hard white pixels under black glass. You can see your reflection in the screen. Outside it’s still midafternoon. God, why aren’t you at work? Aren’t you twenty-eight or something? Aren’t you tired of talking to people through a conversation system that hasn’t changed since The Secret of Monkey Island came out? That was, like, ten years ago.”

Finally, we passed out through a stone archway at the base of a cliff. The city was far above us now. The moon was starting to set. We were entering a space of open-ended wetlands.

I cleared my throat. “Did I mention that Realms of Gold is a mix of indoor and outdoor action-adventure?”

The wagon bumped up against mud. I got out and leaped to the shore, leaving footprints that faded in a few seconds. It was a small, low island hidden in miles of marshland. The night was quiet except for crickets and a bullfrog. At least somebody had tagged this area with the marsh sound palette.

“The cries of panic and alarm have long since faded behind you, and the night’s gone still and silent. But in the lands beyond, the world is tilting on its axis. You know it. We all do,” I said—where exactly was this coming from? “Everything’s changing. You’re going to have to find something to hold on to.

“You reflect on what brought you here,” I said. “The losses.” I made sure they could see the burn scars—unlike regular hits, fire damage in RoGVIII leaves a permanent mark. “The victories. The choices.” I rotated the camera until we could see the tattoo snaking down the side of Leira’s neck. It marked her as a criminal assassin back in her homeland, although they wouldn’t know that.