Get Along or Get Lost: Making Factions in Games Consequential and Interesting

While the ongoing pandemic may lead one to think otherwise, there’s no denying that people like to get together and achieve things greater than their individual selves. Not just in real-life, but also in games–with (non-)player characters advertising their sense of belonging via the groups they associate themselves with and work for.

From the colorful Fire Emblem students that make up the eponymous Three Houses (2019) to the world-weary and heavily armed organizations that patrol scorched earth in the Fallout series (1997 – Present), factions can make all sorts of impressions upon first meeting them. Impressions that can compel players to learn more about them and see what they’ve to offer from a gameplay and narrative perspective by joining or clashing with them. Friend or foe, factions lend depth and momentum to a world’s goings-on.

Of course, factions can’t be brainstormed and implemented into the virtual space willy-nilly. As in reality, there must be a deep-rooted purpose that justifies the existence of a group of like-minded folks in the game world. A purpose that can be convincingly communicated via a set of pillars developers can explore and flesh out for making factions plausible forces to be reckoned with.

Not to mention bolstered or destroyed depending on the player’s choice of company to keep.

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Flesh out the faction’s backstory and place in the world

As suggested before, factions don’t come out of a vacuum and suddenly find themselves embedded into a world’s goings-on. Like individuals, factions find themselves where they are now for a reason–one that can be easily ascertained with a glance at what said factions went through in the past. Such organizational foundations are crucial not just for in-game faction members–what with their need to know what (not) to do within the outfit–but also for developers since backstory can help inform the other aspects of a faction (the next few sections will cover those shortly).

For example, did the faction start off as a coven of witches before turning into a full-blown academy for those interested in and/or with an inborn talent for witchcraft? How about a former chapter of a larger military unit that decided to break away from their superiors due to ideological differences, with one side being hardcore traditionalists and the other more akin to pragmatic peacekeepers? In any case, the roadmap of a faction’s evolution can help players get a logical understanding of how things ended up the way they are now.

Between the technophilic Mechanists’ breaking away from the Hammerites in Thief II: The Metal Age (2000) and the rise and fall of revolutionaries in the fractured world of Disco Elysium (2019), factions can become more interesting to players when they come with dynamic and multifaceted backstories that add solidity to their choice of ideals and image. Bonus points if factional backstories are intrinsically tied to the game’s main storyline, thus compelling players to go out of their way to check out those factions and see how they can impact the player’s progress with their primary objectives. ?

Come up with aesthetics that distinguish the faction from others

Understandably, how a faction navigated its circumstances and surroundings in the past will also impact the way faction members present themselves to outsiders–which includes the look, sound, and feel of said faction. Ergo, rather than adding vibrancy to a faction’s aesthetics and calling it a day, the developers can have the faction’s belief system and past inform its members’ attire and vibe. While this does translate to creative restraints, the goal of having every facet of a faction form a cohesive whole means that developers can come up with a faction whose presentation makes it feel like an organic part of the world.

For instance, a proud military faction can require its members to armor up and flaunt tattoos that broadcast their ideological zeal, but also belie the organization’s bitter and insecure past. Likewise, a faction that was guilty of being too shady and far removed from society in the past can ban the use of face coverings and excess clothing among its members to reinforce the fact that they’ve nothing to hide nowadays. The key is to make the aesthetics not just noteworthy, but also in line with the faction’s background and ideology.

Chief examples of this audiovisual approach to factional believability include Bully (2006) and Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines (2004), in which the former’s cliques and the latter’s clans make their line of thinking known through their choice of clothing and décor for their headquarters. While an in-game note and/or a couple of expository lines don’t hurt, the developers should strive to let bodily and environmental storytelling do a sizable chunk of the proverbial talking when it comes to communicating a faction’s temperament and capabilities to players.

Detail the faction’s gameplay abilities and narrative boons

Speaking of capabilities, it’s one thing for a faction to look/sound/feel the part, yet another to act the part. This can mean anything from possessing tools and skills that give the faction a specialized edge in offensive and defensive measures, to wielding a level of sociocultural clout that impacts how outsiders throughout the land react to said faction’s doings. Either way, there must be an incentive for players to join one faction at the expense of others if they wish to make engaging and consequential progress.

On one hand, a rural faction can wield long-range power in the form of sniper rifles and ghillie suits that suit their distant nature on a physical and social level. On the other, that same distance can also mean that they aren’t looked upon favorably by city dwellers–thus setting up a potential narrative thread that could see players rise through the ranks and help make the faction and its rural supporters more prominent on the world stage. Think of factions as portals into a game’s politics and social structures.

Dying Light 2 (2022) offers two examples of factions bearing tangible goodies for helping them. The Survivors, for instance, specialize in facilitating parkouring via airbags and ziplines installed throughout the environment. As for the Peacekeepers, they’re happy to provide car traps and Molotov lanterns that make the purging of zombies and human outsiders more lethal. And that’s before mentioning the fact that some quests can be locked off if players get too chummy with one side, in turn shaping the narrative and having consequences reflected via major story beats and NPC encounters on the streets.

Determine the faction’s worldview

Of course, factions wouldn’t be leveraging physical and/or sociopolitical might if they had no greater ambitions to realize. By considering a faction’s history, aesthetics, and capabilities, one can start to map out the kind of worldview said faction would embody and wield to guide themselves through their endeavors in the outside world. Worldview, then, hints at the kind of handiwork a player would expect to see from a particular faction, influencing their decision to either join the collective or oppose it.

Does the faction, for instance, exercise an isolationistic doctrine that causes its members to always be on the defensive when dealing with folks approaching their turf? Or is the faction more into the imperialistic game, distrusting the unknown and wanting to conquer it instead by expanding their borders and forcibly annexing neighboring communities? Any of these realities can impact the kinds of quests a player would do to bolster or hinder the faction’s efforts. Ergo, variety doesn’t just apply to viewpoints, but also to the content spawned from the player’s reaction to factional ideologies.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky (2008) epitomizes the mosaic of viewpoints the player may encounter. From the zealous Duty soldiers who wish to destroy the Zone, to the anarchistic Freedom fighters who desire to open their surroundings to the outside world, Clear Sky isn’t afraid to reveal the complexity and intensity of factional ideologies–making the decision to help a particular group dominate another more consequential when players realize they can go from being welcomed to being shot at while roaming the world. Such is life in the Zone, where unpredictable phenomena and firefights go together.

Highlight the faction’s relationships with other groups…

They say that one’s defined not just by who they are, but what they aren’t as well. This is where relationships come in, with folks from all backgrounds and walks of life reacting positively or negatively to one another. With multiple factions existing within a single world and vying for influence in their own way, chances are they’ll encounter one another sooner than later. Whether they choose to join forces, clash with one another, or just keep to themselves can reveal lots about the factions themselves–adding further depth to the game world and making factional dynamics more believable.

For example, if two factions–one pacifist and the other militaristic–bumped into one another, there’s a chance that they aren’t going to get along. On the other hand, should two scientific factions cross paths, they can a) form a coalition, b) compete with one another to monopolize their trade, or c) keep to themselves unless one side does something that tangibly impacts the other. When you factor in other factions who may be indirectly impacted by the above interactions, you end up with a cobweb of factional relationships that players must delicately traverse if they are to beat the game their own way.?

One game world that plays host to an eclectic cobweb of factional relationships is the eponymous province in The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (2002). Between the egomaniacal House Telvanni, the Imperial-friendly House Hlaalu, and the xenophobic House Indoril, Morrowind isn’t the kind of place one’d call stable–with all sides holding varying opinions of the other Houses. Yet it’s that unpredictability that lends complexity to the gameplay and narrative, which can compel players to look at what makes factions tick. Even if it means setting them off by doing something sacrilegious.

… as well as relationships among a single faction’s members

If a glance at political parties the world over is anything to go by, it’s that dissent isn’t just relegated to squabbles between different factions. Disagreements within a faction can also occur, and this is something that developers can leverage to add more depth to members of a group. Of course, creating infighting for the sake of it isn’t going to be as credible as having that infighting naturally stem from the faction’s history, evolution, and situation. This is where the crafting of groups and individual characters intersect, the latter’s personal beliefs and actions affecting the stability and welfare of the former.

Is there, for example, a generational gap within a faction that causes different folks from all walks of life to butt heads with one another? Or how about a relationship between two faction members that gradually turns sour when one of them becomes increasingly radicalized, with the other half wishing to do more to get their loved one to see reason? Whether or not the infighting’s something the player can remedy or just observe, the developers should make faction politics dynamic through conflict and resolution among its members–and that’s without mentioning their existing dealings with outsiders.

Take, for instance, the tribes featured in Horizon: Forbidden West (2022)–particularly the optional quests that unveil tensions within the collectives that Aloy can mend. Examples include the side story “Blood from Blood” which highlights the rift between a Tenakth elder and her rebellious grandson, and the secondary mission “The Wound in the Sand” which involves a water shortage and a clan revolting against their commander’s rations. Forbidden West showcases the brittle nature of unity across all facets of post-apocalyptic life, inviting players to engage with the world and its inhabitants.

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As my last post’s title suggests, broad brushes need not apply when it comes to designing characters–even if they bear commonalities that compel them to bond and work together. Ergo, the tricky part comes not only from making the faction greater than the sum of its parts. It also comes from ensuring that said faction can evoke a collective identity that makes it outstanding and consequential in its milieu. Such is the importance of cross-disciplinary collaboration within the development team in the name of having factions come together from a design, narrative, and aesthetic perspective.

Via the pillars outlined throughout this article, the development team can–like any well-organized faction–come together and use their respective talents to bring to life the different aspects of a group. Whether it’s a ragtag posse of treasure hunters or a monolithic political party casting its shadow over the land it governs, factions invite players into understanding the in-game stakes. The result? A mosaic of contrasting interests that compel players to engage with the whole artwork that’s the game world.

Let me know what you think of my post in the comments section, and feel free to ask questions and share the article.

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