The hero has been present in literature for much of the development of human civilization as we know it. If we dig deeply enough, we find more than four thousand years of records about human figures who face danger and accomplish extraordinary feats. The mythological meaning emerged in Ancient Greece, where the hērōs occupied an intermediate position between humans and gods. Often worshipped after their deaths, figures such as Heracles, Perseus and Odysseus became sources of inspiration.After all, a hero is someone capable of doing the extraordinary and going where an ordinary person could not: killing the monster, facing the gods, saving their people or even overcoming their own mortality.The Catholic Church subverted the heroic figure and transformed it into the image of the saint or martyr, whose stories were told because certain behaviors and moral values were, according to church preachers, meant to be admired and emulated. During the same period, the earliest figures of chivalric literature, such as Arthur, Lancelot and later Galahd, presented an important paradox in the later construction of this image: the ideal knight was expected to display qualities such as generosity and honor, yet some romances showed them failing to live up to those ideals.On one side stood the man who drew close to the divine and became sacred. On the other, the hero appeared as an imperfect human, a trend that continued through the Renaissance. The saints gave way to ordinary people, but people capable of carrying the core of a narrative. William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet reflects dilemmas and values such as individualism contrasted with the appreciation of human emotions, and the expression of personal desires opposed to medieval norms and socioeconomic structures that led families to arrange marriages, hate or kill one another for political influence and territorial expansion.During the 18th and 19th centuries, national heroes emerged alongside stories of revolution and the formation of national identities, transforming historical figures into collective symbols of example and inspiration. Romanticism continued to explore the flawed hero, filled with imperfections that raise the question of whether a character needs to be virtuous to be fascinating and, consequently, inspiring.The 20th century brought this dilemma into mass culture. The period was marked by two World Wars, fascism, economic depression, the Cold War and social upheaval. Fiction sought to reflect on these moments through its characters. Cinema, comics, radio and, later, television created the collective superhero imagination for millions of people: Super-Man in 1938, Batman in 1939, Captain America in 1941 and Spider-Man in 1962. Ironically, these characters shared one element with the figures of Greek mythology: most possessed superhuman abilities, but chose to use them for the collective good.The postwar world raised doubts about human virtue. Trust in institutions had declined and counterculture movements were on the rise; heroes adapted accordingly. More morally ambiguous, selfish, violent or traumatized characters made their way through mass fiction, including cinema and literature. It was the golden age of the antihero.Video games would offer the most immersive heroic experience yet: no longer reading about, listening to or watching the hero, but being the hero in an imaginary world, with a set of rules and a structured narrative to guide them toward their destiny.The plumber who saves the princess, the fighter who defeats the sorcerer, the hunter who takes down aliens, the time travelers who save the world and the unreliable narrator who overcomes his trauma. The player could be all of them, take part in their stories and become invested in their dialogue and dilemmas as though they were there to try to solve them. Even if their role in the outside world was that of an ordinary office worker or shoe salesperson, these stories could inspire them and teach them important lessons for their personal lives.The hero's role in a cynical worldIn recent years, the world has given in to cynicism to a degree not seen since the postwar period. A recent piece by Bill McKibben in The New York Times explains that we were not biologically built to deal with so many changes and so much stress in such a short period of time, causing physical and mental fatigue that simply sleeping or resting cannot resolve, along with higher rates of social isolation and anxiety about the future.Cynicism is a consequence of the torrent of historical events. Ignoring it or becoming accustomed to it is a not-unreasonable response to the amount of stress we are exposed to every day. Fiction, including games, adapted to reflect the collective imagination: more stories set in desolate, post-apocalyptic worlds, more morally gray characters and the recurring absence of happy endings. It is almost as if we had decided that there is no better world, that nothing can be done, that we are all doomed and must cling to our opiates to get through each day.Collectively, we are giving in to despair and building an image of a future without prospects. That is why I miss great, inspiring heroes in video games today, and why the industry should work harder to bring hope back to players.Games need more inspiring heroesAmong the dozens of new game protagonists introduced over the past decade, I offer two examples of good, inspiring heroes in their respective stories.Let's not pretend that Ichiban Kasuga is perfect: in addition to being excessively naive, he has a comic-relief quality that can sometimes feel forced. At certain moments, Ichiban can be mistaken for a big child, such as when he goes so far as to propose to his romantic interest on their first date. It is as though the writers decided to give him the treatment Dragon Ball gave Goku and turn his lack of common sense into a defining trait, particularly in Infinite Wealth, the franchise's eighth mainline game.His silly personality, however, carries real depth. Ichiban is a character much like many players: someone who loves a video game series, Dragon Quest, and uses the game that defined his childhood to see the world, to the point that confrontations "turn into" turn-based battles because Ichiban imagines them that way, and views his personal journey as a "hero's journey."The protagonist agrees to take the blame for a crime he did not commit and spends 18 years in prison, expecting to be welcomed with celebration when he is released. As we know, eighteen years is a long time, and when Ichiban leaves prison, he finds himself in a world he no longer recognizes. He must confront the harsh reality that his clan no longer exists and that his father figure has supposedly joined the enemy.The story of Yakuza: Like a Dragon is full of twists and betrayals, but at its heart is Ichiban's journey in search of the truth. Every step tends to leave him with a new burden to carry. Despite the challenges, he retains the same charisma and loyalty he had at the beginning of the story, even as he recognizes his own imperfections. Like a Dragon also does not have a happy ending, but Infinite Wealth, the next game in the franchise, opens by showing how Ichiban managed to move forward by doing what he does best: helping others.His goal becomes repairing the damage left by decades of conflict and reintegrating former yakuza into society, just as he himself was given the opportunity to do. Infinite Wealth brings more twists; although it does not carry the same emotional weight as its predecessor, it delivers a clear message about maintaining resilience in a world full of hatred.We should not reduce this to naivety: Kasuga knows the world's evil and understands that people lie, betray, exploit and kill. His virtue lies in refusing to turn his knowledge of a bad world into certainty about all of humanity. On the contrary, his hope that the world can be better than the environment in which he grew up drives him to be who he is — despite his circumstances — and to care about convincing his adversaries that they can choose another path.It may sound idealistic to look cynically at the world we live in and say, "Ichiban Kasuga is an inspiring hero," but the most important lesson the character teaches us across two games is not to let the world's wickedness shape us; instead, we should try to shape the world around us despite its inherent evil.This, however, is not the only way to build an inspiring hero.Clive Rosfield, from Final Fantasy XVI, takes the opposite path from Kasuga. At the beginning of the game, he is defined by the death of his brother and the fall of Rosaria after the betrayal of his own family. Enslaved by the invading empire, Clive spends thirteen years longing for revenge, using his vow to kill Joshua's murderer as his motivation to survive. His arc during the first half of the game is fueled by hatred.The search for the truth about Rosaria's fall leads the hero to confront the relationship between Bearers and the population of Valisthea. Magic users in Final Fantasy XVI face systemic persecution: they are enslaved, treated as subhuman, used as commodities and left to die when they can no longer use magic. Again and again, the game reinforces this image, in the main story and in its details, of a Bearer suffering at the hands of their masters.Under Cid's influence and through his own experiences and journey of self-discovery, Clive decides that the system that enslaved him is the problem that must be fought. Cid believes everyone should die on their own terms and offers refuge. Clive offers a new perspective by proposing a world in which everyone chooses how to live. For him, refuge is not enough; it is necessary to have and offer hope of changing the world by attacking the structure that sows and sustains inequality in Valisthea, even if the consequences are worse in the short term.In the end, his personal resentment and desire for revenge become a collective responsibility toward those who share his plight. The structure of Final Fantasy XVI's side quests best demonstrates this philosophy. Many of them forgo major gameplay rewards in favor of transforming the stories behind them and showing how our decisions change lives, making that transformation the "true reward"; some even trigger new missions that explore the world in greater depth.Clive and Ichiban belong to an archetype heroism. The difference is that while Ichiban sees the potential for change in people and believes they can correct their own mistakes, Clive sees a society with distorted values and decides that it does not have to remain organized that way. Ichiban is down-to-earth and closer to the post-Renaissance ideal; Clive has powers that make him special and place him closer to a mythological figure occupying the middle ground between human and god.Both are imperfect and capable of expressing weakness and positive and negative emotions, yet they continue moving forward. Ichiban's flaws are naivety and impulsiveness, while Clive dehumanizes his enemies, to the point of showing no remorse for killing Hugo Kupka, and his central flaw is defining his own worth by what he can do for others. Depending on one's perspective, he could be seen as an antihero.Both are also characters who profoundly change people's lives and inspire through different models. Ichiban embodies kindness, maturity and the acceptance that the world can be better because people are not irredeemably evil, and that we can make a difference through small individual actions even when our surroundings are full of hatred. Clive embodies the determination, courage and understanding required to transform the world if we can identify the structural problems that make our society worse, confront them and provide proper support for the victims of inequality.Heroism as a response to collective nihilismIn September this year, authors Astra Taylor and Naomi Klein published the book End Times Fascism: And the Fight for the Living World (The Fascism of the End Times and the Fight for the Living World, in a literal translation). The book examines a politics defined by the constant expectation of collapse, amid climate crises, growing inequality, wars, deteriorating material conditions and the existential threats posed by artificial intelligence. This outlook is treated as a natural course of events, leading certain groups to stop imagining a shared future and organize around survival, hierarchy, exclusion and abandoning the idea of saving the world we share.We mentioned above the physical and mental exhaustion that the endless stream of events and stress inflicts on the human psyche. Klein and Taylor's book points to the other end of the spectrum: groups with the ability to mobilize and the political power to bring about substantial change have begun accepting these catastrophes as inevitable, preparing to survive them and exploit them to expand their economic and political power.The shared future disappears, replaced by fatalism and survival of the fittest, with the focus shifting to survival and self-preservation. More barriers and greater inequality are built, as groups work to accelerate the deterioration they claim they want to escape, watching the world burn from a protected vantage point beyond the flames. The most vulnerable populations are left out, treated as expendable lives.This phenomenon erodes the prospect of a common future. A society that imagines a shared tomorrow has reason to build things that will outlast individuals, such as institutions and infrastructure. Fatalism bets on collapse and replaces collective action with individual solutions. The authors contrast this philosophy with the concept of "hereness", an attempt to commit to this world and the people who inhabit it, reclaiming our ability to imagine a collective future and act to build it despite crises and uncertainty.The Western world is sinking into nihilism and hopelessness. Social and economic conditions are driving greater isolation, while globalization is facing attacks on a scale not seen in decades. Recent generations, most of them poorer than their parents and grandparents, have little or no prospect of a future and have gradually given in to increasingly risky behavior, such as gambling and volatile investments. Young people and adults alike have embraced mimetic forms of collective hatred on digital platforms, deepening the age and gender divide in society. Collectively, we are losing our ability to dream of a better tomorrow or, at the very least, a less miserable one, turning instead to cynicism and hatred as coping mechanisms.We live in an era in which we are seduced by the idea that nothing matters, that individuals are powerless before great leaders and that the only response is to surrender to chaos. Games need to reclaim one of the oldest functions of heroic fiction: creating characters who keep acting no matter how many times they are confronted with sufficient reason to give up. Figures who defy the odds, act for the collective good and are capable of bringing about substantial change.I am not suggesting that studios adopt activist practices. The problem facing modern humanity runs deeper than the behavior of any particular party or politician, even though political decisions lie at the heart of it. The dilemma is existential: a confrontation between despair and hope in which, today, we are surrendering our ability to dream to the resignation and fatalism born of the certainty that the world is bad and beyond repair.Human history shows that for millennia we have drawn inspiration from heroes and historical figures to overcome challenges, make social progress and evolve as a species. Without a doubt, we are at a moment when we need more examples capable of touching our hearts. Because of their immersive, interactive nature, video games are the best medium for creating these heroes and moving audiences with their stories.Good Heroes Also Need Good VillainsFor two decades, fiction, particularly video games, has frequently relied on the archetype of the redeemable, and sometimes sympathetic, villain. There is no fault in that choice: Emet-Selch, from Final Fantasy XIV, is my favorite antagonist in any work of fiction. Characters such as Ardyn Izunia, Dr. Maruki, Fou-Lu and Renoir Dessendre possess qualities that allow the audience to sympathize with them even when they are cast as villains, and a well-written, melancholic villain is more engaging than someone who does evil for pleasure.Overcomplicating a villain, however, comes at a price and can sometimes create a character as forgettable as the generic antagonist who appears only at the end for the final confrontation. The villain becomes weak and insignificant, and their motivations, however noble they may seem, will not always convince the audience. Great heroes need an opposing force as strong as they are, and empathy is not always the way to create one.Take Ryo Aoki, the antagonist of Yakuza: Like a Dragon. Aoki is ambitious, has a clear political agenda and makes a dozen unforgivable decisions over the course of the story. By the final confrontation, the player wants to defeat him for all his atrocities, but the villain has a personal relationship with Ichiban Kasuga. Even if the audience believes he is beyond redemption and may even want to kill him, the hero still sees the same person he knew eighteen years ago and never loses hope that something good remains in him and can bring him back.When Ichiban finally convinces Aoki, the villain is murdered by one of his followers and dies in the protagonist's arms. The player's concentrated anger shifts to his killer, not because the player sympathized with Aoki, but because they were rooting for Kasuga. In a matter of seconds, what the hero had fought for throughout the entire game slipped from his hands.The villain of Final Fantasy XVI, Ultima, created humanity and conceived it as a means of creating Mythos, a host capable of sustaining enough magic to absorb the aether from the Mothercrystals and cast the spell that would revive his race. Many fans questioned the antagonist's lack of expressiveness and emotion, but he was designed to seem distant from his creation. Ultima is incapable of understanding human emotions and considers emotional bonds and unity obstacles that must be severed or manipulated.The conflict between Clive Rosfield and Ultima is, at its core, philosophical. The hero wants to free the Bearers by destroying the Mothercrystals and rebuilding society around equality. The villain sees humanity as a disposable means to his goal. For all practical purposes, Ultima is the slaveholder's leap to godhood, with Clive representing the link between human and god, the force capable of bringing him down.Clive's strength comes from the autonomy and unity that Ultima rejects and cannot understand. It is inconceivable to him that Mythos would not want to serve him and become his vessel, and he blames free will for his failure. In the end, Final Fantasy XVI becomes a confrontation between freedom and servitude, with its central figures each representing the ultimate expression of those ideals.There is one title that offered an answer to the desolation of the end of the world more than 30 years ago, with the villain who best embodies the concept of nihilism and making the world burn while watching from afar ever produced by the industry.After achieving his goal and attaining power equal to that of the gods, Kefka destroys the world and rules from the top of his tower. With his ambitions fulfilled, the antagonist of Final Fantasy VI is haunted by fatalism. To him, impermanence strips existence of meaning, leading to the question: "Why create anything knowing it will be destroyed?".At this point, Kefka represents the most extreme expression of the collective hopelessness and crisis of the future presented in End Times Fascism. A society depends on the belief that building tomorrow is worthwhile, giving us reason to take individual and collective actions that outlast our own existence and limitations. When the future appears doomed, there is no point in investing in it, and the temptation remains to make the most of the time left without caring about anyone outside one's group.While the book points to the selective survival of "our own" at the expense of "everyone", Kefka completely abandons the idea of "we" and represents the total renunciation of the world, leaving only the "I". With absolute power to decide who lives, who dies and which communities continue to exist or disappear, his purpose becomes plunging the world into despair.We need more Games That Fight DespairKefka would not be so memorable without a counterpoint to the antagonist who achieved everything he wanted only to discover life's lack of purpose. Unlike other titles, Final Fantasy VI has no fixed protagonist, although Terra Branford commonly fills that role as its central reference point. The game features a large cast of characters, each with a personal arc, motivations and dilemmas they face throughout the story. None of them provides the counterpoint alone. It is their unity, along with their individual and collective experiences, that gives the confrontation its purpose.When she awakens in the World of Ruin, Celes finds herself on a planet she no longer recognizes: continents have been reshaped, cities have vanished, thousands of people have died, and she is stranded on a deserted island with Cid. Depending on the player's choices, the experience is so devastating for her that she attempts to take her own life. This is the moment when she gives in to the despair the villain wants the entire world to feel.After surviving the fall, Celes finds a bird wearing Locke's bandana, rekindling her will to live. The heroine crosses the sea, and her decision to move forward despite the apocalypse helps restore hope to the other heroes. Terra finds orphaned children in Mobliz and decides that protecting them is reason enough to keep fighting. Strago regains his purpose when he learns that his granddaughter is alive. Locke continues trying to resurrect his beloved despite the end of the world. Sabin and Edgar never stop fighting, while Cyan, living in seclusion, exchanges letters while impersonating a young woman's deceased husband, helping him cope with his own grief over losing his wife and son.Unlike the conflict between Clive and Ultima, the final confrontation with Kefka is not a direct clash of ideals. The heroes recognize the limits of time and the impermanence of life, but reject fatalism and choose to keep hope alive where the villain believes none exists. The message left by the World of Ruin arc is: when there is no hope, it is up to us to build it.A similar lesson is taught in another game from the then-Squaresoft, released around the same time.In Chrono Trigger, a group of adventurers travels to the future and discovers that the world was destroyed in 1999, nearly a millennium after the era they came from. They could simply return to the present, live their lives to the fullest, marry, have children and leave the future's problems to the future. But chance gave them the agency to discover the coming ruin and decide to prevent it, even if it would happen centuries after their deaths.Perhaps they were wrong, and Lavos was an inevitable catastrophe. Even so, the group chose to turn evidence of the disaster into the fuel that kept hope alive. Considered by many to be the best RPG of all time, Chrono Trigger built its epic adventure on a refusal to embrace nihilism in the face of the end times.ConclusionWars, institutional crises, the pandemic, artificial intelligence, political instability, widening divides and growing social inequality, the economy, the cost of living, polarization, climate change and a dozen other issues have fueled cynicism and collective hopelessness. The world appears broken, and the response has been: "there is nothing to be done". This notion is also learned through culture, through mass communication but also through works of fiction that offer imaginary models of dystopia.Dystopia now feels like reality. Perhaps it is time for fiction—including games—to move in the opposite direction and cultivate a wave of agency and hope, offering new imaginary models for thinking about what a person can do in circumstances that seem immutable and set against them. More than at any other time since the industry began, we need characters who give us the courage to look to them as examples and make a difference in our personal and collective lives.We do not need a perfect protagonist who convinces players they can fix everything; we need figures who show us how worthwhile it is to try and to live. Characters who understand that the world can be cruel, unjust and difficult to change, yet continue to believe in the possibility of building something better.Ichiban Kasuga and Clive Rosfield come from worlds that gave them every reason to give up. They chose to keep trying. The cast of Final Fantasy VI faced the literal end of the world and found ways to rekindle hope. Kefka embodied the individualized nihilism that haunts us today, and the question of why build anything when everything will one day be destroyed has ceased to be a video game narrative and become the way many people—with or without power—have come to see reality.Thirty years later, we need new games with protagonists capable of answering that question.
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