Video games are good at war. For decades, games have covered the breadth, horror and honor of battle in every conceivable arena, from ancient history to futuristic space stations, from the hills of Mordor to the beaches of Normandy. Games have a long history of transforming firefights into sporting events, pitting players against one another with a wide array of weapons at their disposal. It makes sense, given where the industry started.
"When our technology was really primitive, the easiest things to create were simulations of sports and of physical things and battles and sort of black-and-white conditions," Ken Wong, the creator of Monument Valley, says. "Since then we've developed so much technology and discussion, and we're able to create stories and characters with a lot of subtleties, but it feels like gaming as an industry is still hanging onto that past as sort of the true form of gaming."
It's far less common to see video games tackle the other side of war and competition: the human side. Love, for instance, is rarely a central selling point for a video game. Plenty of classic action and adventure games use love as a motivation for the main character -- usually by kidnapping or killing the male protagonist's wife -- but less often do these experiences dive into the dense complexities of relationships and romance.