Non-violence in '"violent" video games

Pacifism seems to be a growing form of play that is getting very popular in modern RPG’s. This being a play through the game in which the player kills or hurts NOTHING.

Sounds impossible right? Extremely difficult? yes. Impossible? No

Modern RPG games like Fallout 3 and Elder Scrolls IV: Skyrim are intended to be somewhat of a hack-and-slash, a game in which the enemy is not worried about, just more meat for my sword to slice through. However, as people have discovered, there is a way to play through these games without killing a soul.

Take this video here, in which a player is making his way through Skyrim as a “cat monk”

Or this player here who played through the whole of Fallout: New Vegas with only killing a radroach you have to kill at the start.

One player has even gone as far as creating a character build for the pacifist player. A build which caters to the bartering and speech perks which lets the player convince NPC’s to help them out whilst getting rid of any perks that cater to weapon use or strength.

The problem with this however is that these games are designed for killing, the producers of the game expect the player to go around killing things. In most cases being a pacifist in one of these games is a very difficult thing, an example of this can be seen in the first video where the player is obviously frustrated that at the end of many dungeons you have to kill someone to finish a quest.

This actually sounds quite fun, guess it’s time to boot up Skyrim again