I like doing the dishes. I constantly lament, even ten years on, that my wife bought a dishwasher. I really enjoy the mundane process of making a dirty plate get clean, and my hands are warm. It requires only the most basic skill, but there’s a constant sense of progress, of achieving something, and at the end of it a pile of nice, clean crockery. Which is to say, I get it, I’m totally aware of all the issues, but when I hear a new game has a colossal map covered in icons to clear, I feel a sense of warm happiness.
I have yet to play Ghost of Yōtei on account of its not having been released yet, though Ethan’s shared some thoughts on his time with it so far. But as I look through the reviews, the themes I see recurring are those (likely very rightly) criticizing the game for what Ethan calls the “pleasure and the irksome strain of obsessive completionism unique to games.” I read that Yōtei tries harder to make the fields of icons more opaque, the repeated activities and experiences a more natural part of its world, but of course still absolutely leans on them. I see William Hughes’ fantastically furious AV Club review describing these as “the nine million chores waiting to intrude on [Atsu’s] quest for solitary vengeance.” In Chris Tapsell’s superbly considered Eurogamer review, he notes, “Once again, sidequests amount to helping nameless NPCs with comical busywork that inevitably ends in killing six-to-twelve bad guys.” And I think: “Ooh, goodie!”
I know, it’s not OK. People like me, expressing thoughts like this, are only encouraging the piping of sludgy pink goo into our gaming lives. But I think there’s something in that mundanity within some games. I don’t think it’s high art, nor indeed even to be encouraged. But I do kinda love it.
I’ve recently been very taken with a 2021 survival game called Dysmantle. It was added to Google’s Play Pass, so I installed it on my tablet, and spent many, many happy hours playing this super-simple, ridiculously repetitive game. It’s about taking over region after region of a sprawling map, killing the zombies within, and crafting better versions of all your tools as you go. I don’t want to be disparaging of it, because like I say, it’s brought me hours of pleasure. But it’s…not high art? (This particular game actually has a whole lot more going for it than many of its type, with surprise little twists, hidden mini-games, and an enjoyably silly story, and there’s a reason it has 4,600 “very positive” reviews on Steam. I’m determined not to throw this under the bus.) But whatever its merits, it’s the busywork that occupies me here.
The same is true of so many Ubisoft games, of course. Ubisoft’s open-world formula has been the primary target of the ire some feel for the format for many years, from Far Cry to Assassin’s Creed to Watch_Dogs. We all roll our eyes at the 83 billion icons, questioning whether we really want to gather every single missing butterfly wing or whatever it might be. But I secretly do. I secretly love collecting all the missing butterfly wings. There’s this dirty map, and I can make it clean. It requires only the most basic skill, but there’s a constant sense of progress, of achieving something, and at the end of it a nice clean map.
In many ways, I think of games like Ghost of Yōtei and Far Cry 6 as much more like PowerWash Simulator than like, say, Death Stranding or The Witcher 3. I adore PowerWash Simulator, obviously, given the opening statement of this piece. It is quite literally a game about making dirty things clean, with minimal skill, but a constant sense of progress. That’s the entire conceit, it’s the concept distilled into its purified form. I’ve bought all the DLCs on Xbox, just so there are more mucky things to make shiny and new, rather than because I’m particularly enamored by their tie-in theme. And I genuinely think that it’s the same sense of rewarding, mundane progress that motivates me there as drives me in games like Ghost of Tsushima and Horizon Zero Dawn to eschew the main story for hours at a time, just to tidy up the map.
Hell, I’m replaying Metroid Dread at the moment (I’ve just reached the final boss, and can’t finish the third stage, and am cross), and I realized that the moment I got the double-jump, I was (oh god I am so embarrassed to be sharing this) less excited about now being able to reach previously inaccessible areas than I was that I’d now be able to paint in all the backgrounds on the minimap. I wish I were joking. I was like, “Oh yes, now I can finally fill in those few remaining squares in all the save rooms!” That’s not OK. I’m not OK.
But it’s that same ridiculous part of me that sees these reviews of Yōtei and thinks, “Yup, you’re absolutely right to call that out. That’s crappy. But before, I wasn’t sure I wanted to spend $80, and now I’m certain I do!”
So please, I’m inviting you to condemn me. In pitching this article, Kotaku‘s mighty Carolyn Petit responded so perfectly. “I think that’s a fine argument to make and you can definitely write it! I’m just saying that I’m too much of an ‘Art must be the axe for the frozen sea inside of us!‘ person to really champion video games as comfort food myself.” And I thought, god, yes, she’s right. I wish I were that axe-wielding hero, fighting for art in a world of pasty sludge! And you know, to some degree I am! I dedicate as much of my work time as I’m able to writing about obscure, bizarre and clever games, championing the tiny indies with big ideas. I do have a bit of an axe! But also, no, I love putting that weapon down, because it’s so bloody heavy, and I’m tired, and I just want to slouch on the couch, join “the camp of willing lobotomization” as Tapsell so perfectly puts it in his Eurogamer review, and make the dirty plates get clean.