Released in 2022, Dying Light 2 not only offers an interesting approach to the survival horror convention. The game also recognises the fundamental problem of the contemporary pandemic-stricken world. Techland developed not just an action game but a story about a world in a state of isolation that unfolds on many levels, including the city, neighbourhoods and homes of Villedor residents. The game introduces a narrative of constantly monitoring the progression of the disease, but also poses a series of challenges to players who are grieving for their loved ones and longing for estranged family members and friends. Even if the game was not designed as a response to the 2019 global pandemic, its world and the stories embedded in it acknowledge the feelings of grief, loss and sense of social isolation that are universal during a pandemic, helping players to cope with them. Dying Light 2 does more than just explore the phenomenon of a pandemic. It is first and foremost a game about reinstating a community, as the bulk of the tasks embedded in its world have to do with uniting a community in the face of danger and rebuilding the world against a plague. Hence, the game explores the tensions arising from opposing approaches to rebuilding a community in a state of emergency, namely, an anarchist option, on the one hand, and a militaristic one, on the other. At the same time, similarly to other productions by Polish game developers, the political and social conflict forms the backdrop for the central quest for a lost family member.
Outro
What would therefore be characteristic of some of Poland’s best-known digital games? On the basis of the items discussed, let me outline a number of topics that are key in Polish culture and that seem decisive in bringing international recognition to our domestic productions.
Ethical issues come to the fore in most of these games. Regardless of the convention or world-building setting adopted, Polish game studios skilfully portray issues of tolerance and capture class or racial tensions, but they also reveal them at multiple levels of complexity, ranging from individual prejudices to systemic and political power structures. Ethical choices are inextricably connected with the clearly messianic nature of Polish game narratives, as the literature on the subject states. Whether the protagonist is a monster slayer, the eponymous cyberpunk, a group of civilian survivors in a besieged city or the city itself, in the productions we have looked at here, the players play the role of saviours. This also means that a key characteristic of Polish games is that they skilfully use dystopian narrative elements, combining them with concepts of systemic transformation and representations of totalitarian political and social solutions or traumatic history that the protagonist challenges. In this sense, the enormous role of fantasy in these narratives is not only to guarantee an appropriate setting for confronting history and the present but also to construct modern and postmodern myths that are able to hold together generational experiences as part of a participatory culture. This is why ghosts, apparitions and spectres are so important in games by Polish developers. They are not reduced to mere spooks to be exorcised; they communicate intriguing stories, traumas and collective experiences. They are conjured in a game to encourage players to participate in the creation of new myths about localness, Slavdom or history. They are introduced by means of established worldbuilding or narrative patterns into global circulation. This is why the roles of protagonists in the games in question are played by broken and estranged but, consequently, multidimensional characters. The narratives under discussion are developed in opposition to the hopelessness of the world, the climate disaster, the dire state of politics, life and community.
A very important feature of the narratives in question is the motivational force of family relations and friendships. Even in strategy video games such as Frostpunk, decisions related to the welfare of children or the care of family members in the city are an important element of moral tensions. Similarly, in This War of Mine, factors related to community life are critical to the survival of the besieged civilians who would otherwise be doomed without mutual care. In The Witcher 3, Observer, The Medium and Dying Light 2, the story is driven by a relationship with a family member: a daughter, son, father, sister, while the narrative in Cyberpunk 2077 is driven by friendships and romantic bonds. Moreover, Polish games explore various tensions between family, on the one hand, and politics and history, on the other. These intricate relations are translated into traumas, personal tragedies and difficult moral choices. A very important quality of games developed in Poland is their entrenchment in the national literary tradition, which is not only limited to the abovementioned school reading list (classics by Mickiewicz, Białoszewski or Schulz). Polish gameplay is also interested in mediating through works by contemporary authors such as Marcin Przybyłek, Andrzej Sapkowski, Olga Tokarczuk or Zdzisław Beksiński. Also, the awaited The Invincible, based on Stanisław Lem’s novel, which is due to be released this year, confirms the unprecedented permeation of literature and games developed in Poland – a phenomenon unparalleled anywhere in the world. It is noteworthy that video game worlds developed in Poland introduce tropes of Polish culture and historical experience into global circulation both on purpose, as in Observer, The Witcher 3 or The Medium, and in the form of allegorical or ghostly transmission of generational experiences in Cyberpunk 2077 or Dying Light 2. In other words, Polish artists inscribe symbols of their native cultural space into digital spaces and settings, including traditional cottages from the village of Zalipie or the Crane in Gdańsk portrayed in The Witcher 3, the appearance of the Niwa Resort modelled after the historic Cracovia hotel in The Medium, or the graffiti of Topielica (a Slavic demon of a drowned woman) in Dying Light 2. Games therefore participate in intercultural mediation through worldbuilding. They invite others to our worlds even if these worlds are adaptations of stories set in the US or the UK. Consequently, it turns out that the joint participation in the game worlds built in Poland endows our productions with exceptional elusiveness, popularity and playability precisely because of the way of narrating, the way of looking at the world and the mediation of cultural experiences. Importantly, this mediation would not be possible without the use of global conventions such as cyberpunk, steampunk, or fantasy and sci-fi in general. It is in these worldbuilding settings that Polish video game developers find the tools to explore local problems from a global perspective, while speaking the language of gaming, the new lingua franca.