Patient Zero, Parasite, Epidemic Agent

Abstract

This research investigates the figure of the player as a pathogen agent able to impose a propagating form of homologation within the video game Watch Dogs: Legion (Ubisoft 2020). The study involves the analysis of the role of the player according to a multiple configuration: as patient zero, parasite, and epidemic agent. The role of the player is potentially expressed through his or her being a starting point of contagion, a parasite that raids the bodies of non-player characters (NPCs) and an epidemic agent—a potentially uncontrolled transmission medium. Watch Dogs: Legion is set in a totalitarian London of a hypothetical future in which the player can impersonate any NPC in the game world. Since this contagion effect is the fundamental mechanic of the experience, this paper shows how it is not the NPC to represent and be a subject to an idea of homologation but how it is the player who imposes a propagating form of homologation with his or her tastes, political, and social behaviours. Regarding the game narrative framework, it is possible to state that the totalitarian form implemented in the game design is addressed by the player across an epidemic process and expression. Compared to the trend of video games to homologate the player to ideologies and mechanics of the product, the analyzed text proposes an inverse process. The paper argues that as an epidemic agent, the player both generates and fights (as a network) a process of homologation, creating kindred avatars and tackling totalitarianism.