1000xRESIST: On Endings and Evangelion

In the time since finishing 1000xRESIST, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. Sunset Visitor’s debut sci-fi thriller features clones, an apocalypse and extra-terrestrial giants. There isn’t anything here that isn’t commonplace for the genre, yet it dares to ask questions I didn’t know could be asked. What if those clones weren’t just clones—what if they were your sisters? How do you and your sisters bear the weight that your creation is tantamount to humanity’s extinction event? I feel about 1000xRESIST the same way I feel about Kentucky Route Zero, a game I’ve championed as a piece of capital-L Literature: that it feels unfair that a game so initially unassuming could pack such a deeply thematically ingrained punch. One theme, however, dances obsessively around my brain above all the rest. It isn’t the complex nature of motherhood delivering unintended generational trauma, nor is it the inherent yet unspoken feeling of alienation that comes with immigration—these themes are all vitally important to understand, but to me they don’t compare to the one that has captivated me most, the one through which none of the others can exist: choice.

The idea of “choices” in videogames is a curious thing to consider. By nature of games being an interactive medium, any input made by a player into the game is a choice—though that is a generous claim, as these “choices” are often the result of a clash between the game and a player’s reaction time or mechanical ability level. Failing a quick time event that results in player death isn’t a conscious choice; nobody “means” for Isaac Clarke to drive a needle into his eye in Dead Space 2. Most people, therefore, regard “choices” as those which are narratively impactful: when the player has an opportunity to directly affect the plot beats of a game. 

Choice-based games widely suffer the same pitfall: they end, and that ending must be programmable. Whatever freedom was sold to players is capped at how many Narrative Designers are on your team, and how burdened the Programmers would be with each new conclusion imagined. Each game in the Mass Effect franchise is filled with a universe’s worth of infinitesimal decisions, and there are three of them. Every variable cannot be accounted for, so the team at BioWare chose to account for a grand three of them. No matter the path taken, Mass Effect 3 will always see Commander Shepard take one of three actions to conclude his journey. Fable II will always see the Hero choose one of, coincidentally, three rewards for saving Albion. Surprising no one, players were upset by this. Nothing is more damning to the idea of freedom than it being a farce, and the conclusions of these titles revealed the realities of development to players. No amount of “It’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey” makes up for that illusion being shattered.

Still, let’s consider that destination. After defeating Lucien, Fable II’s Hero is transported to the top of the Spire to make their big choice. What once seemed an oppressive monument to mankind’s evil now holds salvation at its peak. Here was where the world was almost destroyed, and here is where it will remain intact. It’s an almost impossible space—whether through the immediacy of juxtaposing circumstances, or the plain mystique wrapped in such a place, this location isn’t real. It’s ethereal. The final moments of Mass Effect 3 play out in almost the same way. Shepard is far beyond the conflict with the Reapers, beaten but safe within the Citadel, communing with a ghost child over the preservation of the galaxy’s life. The bloody war rages in the background, but here the only concern is your decision. Nothing else matters. Musicals follow a pacing that when the emotion of a circumstance is too large to comprehend, it must be sung instead; here, the weight of choice becomes so unbearable that it transcends the rules of reality. Compare this to the height of Neon Genesis Evangelion, wherein the final two episodes take place in the psyche-space created by the Human Instrumentality Project. Though it seems Instrumentality is a machination far beyond Shinji’s agency, it serves as an emotional climax for his arc of self-doubt. Here, Shinji must accept the world around him and what it means to him. He must examine how he values the people he’s met and decide if he can carry that value within himself. He must choose.

Throughout 1000xRESIST, we uncover the past sins of the ALLMOTHER—the matriarchal figurehead for what remains of humanity—in her relationships with the Occupants—the otherworldly beings responsible for apocalypse. The ALLMOTHER allowed, even encouraged extinction, and continues to lie about the state of the world to you and your sisters. Our player character realizes these sins through communions: a channeling of memories between two individuals. A plan is hatched to commune with an Occupant, resulting in a mass communion between all sisters where all can witness these lies for themselves and create their own meaning. For a brief moment, all become psychically linked and converse about the actions they’ve seen. It is here where 1000xRESIST finds its own Instrumentality. Towards the end of this mass communion, the player is transported to one of these ethereal places of choice. Like the Spire, Citadel or Instrumentality, there are no threats here. It is serene, yet eerily so, because it should not be. You cannot recognize this place—it does not exist, no matter how strongly you feel the opposite. The Occupant you initiated communion with speaks to you; they are leaving earth, and are allowing you to reshape the way in which the future unfolds. They’ve spoken throughout the game, informing us that “There is a choice and we will not make it.” We, the player, get to make “The Big Choice.”

However, this isn’t “The Big Choice” as we know it from other videogames. 1000xRESIST doesn’t feed you a multiple choice question like Mass Effect or Fable II do. Before the player are 10 streetlights, each illuminating different characters from the story. You are given the option to keep their lights on and bring them forward into the new world, or turn them off and erase them completely. Whose values will you choose to carry with you? Under one streetlight you see the ALLMOTHER’s parents—and in the way the game shows you communion, experiencing memories for yourself—they’re your parents too . They immigrated from Hong Kong to escape victimhood under oppressive rule. They tried to fight for their freedom in the 2019 riots and had little to show for it. “The memories of a city always on the shore of extinction,” the Occupant describes. “An obsession and yearning that will never stop. It can help you subsist or it can make you starve. Will you carry this?” If you do carry this, how will you balance that weight among the nine other decisions you have to make? Surely, the themes your parents represent cannot co-exist with the Red Guard and its leader Mauve—the status quo militant enforcers who “keep the peace.” The ideals of traditionalists who cling to the ALLMOTHER’s teachings will clash with both the new radical thinkers and the sisters directly harmed by those teachings. You will need to map the relationships between these factions, and distill your response into one of over 3 million possible outcomes. This isn’t multiple choice. This is an essay.

I played through this sequence in a way I thought was true to my own beliefs: that no sin is beyond redemption, and I cannot be the authority who judges another. I left all 10 lights on and chose altruism: to carry everyone’s weight. Upon returning to reality, Mauve shot me dead where I stood. The game returned me to Instrumentality and asked me to choose again. I had not made the right choice. You simply cannot carry it all. 1000xRESIST dares to challenge the player’s hubris by making them truly examine the world around them, and the causes for that world. Over the last dozen or so hours we’ve witnessed a cycle of terror repeated countless times. Just as the police terrorized citizens in Hong Kong, the ALLMOTHER terrorized humanity, and so too did the Red Guard terrorize the sisters. Keeping the past alive only allows the past to control your future. You cannot be altruistic. You must choose. 

There are two possible “good” endings to 1000xRESIST. Each plays out largely the same, the only differences pointing out that the victorious are the ones who write history. These endings all stem from turning off the lights of those who have committed violent persecution. The game makes two powerful statements here. The first is that our only hope of true peace as a species is to recognize those that would do us harm and eliminate them from the equation. We cannot wait for the problem to get too large before taking action. The second statement is that we have to actively make this choice ourselves. Inaction allows those who would do harm to grow in size and power, and we cannot allow that. There can be no room for moving goalposts, waiting to see if the next deplorable action trumps the last. We cannot idly sit by and say, “This oppression sucks, but surely this isn’t as bad as it gets.” 1000xRESIST demands that we recognize violence, and choose to do something about it, lest we stumble into the same trappings as those before us. Only when you recognize this—when you choose to make a stand against oppression—can you leave Instrumentality.

I can’t pretend that the poetic nature of “the places where choices happen” excuses some of the failings of games like Mass Effect 3 or Fable II. Nor can I overlook the fact that 1000xRESIST’s 3 million potential relationship maps are still effectively realized by seven final endings. It still falls prey to the idea that a game’s ambition is only as realized as the time, resources and people devoted to it. Still, rising out of this pitfall, 1000xRESIST shows something novel. We all have the ability to make a choice. In face of corruption, oppression, harm and violence, we can make a stand. We only have to choose to do so. Is that a weight you are willing to carry?

Perry Gottschalk is a Paste intern, thinking about games and the way they make us feel. For more feelings, follow @gottsdamn on Twitter.