CN Games Can't Be Anti-Establishment (Government/Corporations)?
I was listening to something about Telegram and thought, "Here we go with the Cyberpunk." Then, I started playing ZZZ, which I understood to be Cyberpunk, and realized something was missing. After that, I started thinking about a variety of Chinese gacha games, and only Arknights came to mind.
Let's see, there are different story archetypes, the most typical being the hero's journey, but there's another one called the "Outlaw" archetype, which consists of (with help from GPT):
- Fight against oppression: The protagonist fights against an oppressive system that could be a corporation, a totalitarian government, or a combination of both.
- Individual vs. the system: The protagonist is usually an individual or a small group facing a much larger and more powerful system.
- Moral ambiguity: Unlike the classic hero, the rebel often operates in a moral gray area, using any means necessary to achieve their goals.
And in ZZZ, our protagonist is not a Rebel; in fact, they work with the government and have a license. Even though one chapter involves fighting a corporation, it never happens again, and in patch 1.1, they portray the public defense almost as if they were invincible, divine deities who smell like strawberries.
So, considering that China might be sensitive to these themes, as they could raise questions about Big Brother, by origin (CN, TW, KR, JP, NA), how many gachas do you know where the protagonist is an Outlaw fighting against a corrupt government and large corporations that manipulate public opinion?