And yeah, I agree. We barely got to know the characters before they were whisked away from us again. In Calle’s case it’s hard to care for a character if they’re not given any significant depth, and killed off too soon.
1 Like
Come on people! It’s not about his possible nambie-pambie life, and how well you did or didn’t know him. It’s about how he died!
1 Like
Well yeah, just that it was about him making a sacrifice due to emotion. Even Veronika was getting emotional, but I just didn’t really feel there was an emotional impact of loss.
He lost Freddie that in the beginning he kinda tried referring you to, because he could rely on him. There’s emotional depth there, but we didn’t get to explore any of that. We just kinda luckily found the main place to go to, got the stuff to get there and went there.
If you mean the way he died as a spectacle, then yeah… There was a big boom and it was successful in it’s task.
I felt sad when it happened because first of all we had those TV screen teasers from Twitter that Calle wrote. So I was intrigued in the character from the get go.
Then when the dlc dropped Calle was an instant hit for me and was my fav character in the game. Still is my fav character. So when he died I was really sad bout it.
I liked Calle as the big conspiracy guy, kinda set him apart from the others. The death in it self was kinda cool, but there was no emotional weight for the player to care, as most of his dialogue was radio. In general I don’t think we got enough of Calle to justify the death.
Maybe that’s the lesson then. We didn’t get to know him to feel close, so we feel we should have been able to spend more time… Us getting robbed of him, how he got robbed of Freddie
2 Likes
That’s a valid point. I feel like the problem is that the character has no lines, only silent. While Calle was a cool character, the connection between him and the player doesn’t feel there. As there’s no way for us the player to form a connection with words.
Calle’s development was shallow, I didn’t feel robbed because I couldn’t get to know him better. Veronica leaves with just a goodbye and I expected a lot more from her.
There are so few npcs in the game I expected each one would be unique and impactful. But no, they just stand in silence at the hotel or inside the cave.
I’m currently doing FNIX Rising side missions and there is no comment, no “good work” or real impact from each mission. If there were no npcs in the game I wouldn’t even see a difference. So no, Calle’s death didn’t mean much to me.
1 Like
Yeah, it’s one thing I wanted to see in the beginning where they acknowledge you’re there and kinda react to you. Few voice lines that rotate as a basic first step. I’ll use the chance to plug one of my topics about bringing the NPCs further, since they’re already here and won’t be leaving so easily - This post
Well, at the first the dev’s team made the game.
And the game was empty, with a lot of bugs and with little form; and the players complained a lot about that.
And the dev’s team said, let there be monthly updates and npcs: and there was monthly updates and npcs. And everybody, looking the news, saw that its a good.
I’ve see your other topic and it’s a good one. Today we talked about the game because we care about it. I believe that this is not the final form to the npcs, they will evolve into more than what they are today and will be, in fact, important characters to us.
1 Like
Perhaps instead of it coming over the radio, the player could open the door to the truck and see Calle covered in blood. Where his side of the conversation is in person (and only Veronica is over the radio). Then you let him go to finish the mission. Would give a little more personal feeling to the moment.
I think FNIX rising was just short on the main story line in general, so if we were to return to Calle every time to rethink the plan in person, it would’ve given that personal touch. Otherwise we really quickly breezed through every question we had about how we are going to attack FNIX. There were like moments of convenience when we needed to get explosives and find out where FNIX is located at with the data terminal. If after the snowplough you bring it back and attach it to the truck, you see calle working on his thing up by the truck and get some personal moments, it’d make it much more punchy in the gut for losing him.
It’s weird talking about losing someone not being significant, but I do feel like I’m a bit of a stranger to Calle, even though I got to know his personality before I met him (BBS boards)
1 Like
There is quite a lot of character building that went into Calle and out of the NPCs we get to see, he is one of the top 3 most well developed characters. The other two being Veronika Nilsson and Benny Malmqvist.
So, what do we know about Calle?
- He has a farm in the Farmlands (Stora Dyrbo, “Colonists”) and he is an old farmer.
- He doesn’t have any immediate family, except his beloved nephew Freddie (who Calle might have thought of as his own son).
- He also doesn’t have many friends, only one: Bodil.
- Calle and Bodil were best friends for many years, prepping for the “alien” invasion and conspiring together. (There could’ve been even romantic connection between the two.)
- Before, during and after the d-day events, Calle posted several bulletin messages. Topic: The Calle discussion
- During the Masskär resistance camp attack (“Where The Sun Sets”), Calle lost Freddie and was left as a single survivor.
- It is unknown what happened with Bodil but when player reaches her house (“Never Trust Anyone”), she is nowhere to be seen. It is highly likely that Bodil was also killed by the machines.
With it, the stage has been set.
There are some additional conversations between Calle and Veronika, where Calle still remains skeptical of the machines being built by military and still thinks that these “tin cans” are aliens.
However, Calle doesn’t have anyone left to live for. And for the last ditch effort, he is willing to sacrifice himself, so, the other survivors can live. This is also the reason why Calle didn’t want no-one else to drive his truck. He knew very well that he won’t be coming back from this.
From “Piece by Piece”:
Calle: "Looks like Jenny, Kenneth and Leila have made themselves comfortable. Are you sure you don't mind that we're moving all our junk in there?"
Veronika: "No, not at all. It's really nice to have other people around. Makes the place feel... human."
Calle: "Freddie was always bringing in things to boost morale. We need things like that to remind us life's still worth living. Cause otherwise, what the hell are we fighting for?"
From “New Cycles”:
Veronika: "The path is clear. Get the bombs where they need to be and run!"
Calle: "We don't have time."
Veronika: "What, what are you saying, Calle?"
Calle: "Please. Let me do this. I have to. It's either this, or those damn tin cans win."
Calle: "I just want to see Freddie again. It was him I was fighting for this whole time."
Veronika: "No, Calle! There must be another way."
Calle: "Not for me. That blast got me good. I was never gonna make it out of here alive."
Veronika: "What... what will I tell the others then?"
Calle: "Tell them I said goodbye. It's been fun.
Considering all that above, i can’t say that character building for Calle is “shallow” or he didn’t have much depth about him.
2 Likes
I think a lot of the reason people don’t feel much of a connection with him is because too many of the conversations were over the radio which doesn’t feel very personal. You could be sort-of listening to him talk on the radio while you’re doing other stuff like kill robots and zone-out on what he’s saying. Then just check your mission logs later for what to do, as you weren’t paying much attention while he talked. If you had to return to him to talk in person and stay there till he was done then I believe there would be more connection.
Plus I always thought talking on the radio about plans was kinda dumb considering FNIX is listening and joins in on some conversations.
1 Like
The characters aren’t shallow, I understood it as ‘significant depth’ being significant to us. Game’s lore can prove that whoever is behind story writing, does their background checks for depth in topics. Write the most passionate and deeply engaging character ever, but if I’m not going to see it, I won’t be able to believe it.
We as the player weren’t really associated with him to make that impact personal, so the death was at face value. It’s already hard enough to make these characters interesting through imagining and writing them up to try and connect with your human self through a screen and fictional world you know you subject yourself to and know isn’t real. It’s damn impressive when that emotional impact is struck and the writer has the invisible power to impact indirectly.
Also, I thought the same of this when that happened the first time 
1 Like
I wasn’t implying that you said chars being shallow. It was addressed to the one who actually said so in this topic.
This is what i think most people see Calle as. They skip over the lore and doesn’t pay attention to the conversations chars have with them. And by the time we actually see those chars in action, many are disappointed by the lackluster impact they give to players.
Not everything must be forced into the players face, for them to acknowledge the events. Many aspects in GZ are subtle and if you don’t pay attention, you’ll easily skip over it. Even most of the main story is like so; environmental story telling, clues from mission items, radio chatter, actual events involving player - all that combined gives the full experience in GZ. However, if players are only focused on one aspect (actual events involving player), the result is expected to be: disappointing.
3 Likes
That’s… brutal. And maybe not the impression that the game wants to leave on the player. But that would be impressive, for sure.
Same here. But apparently FNIX Rising dlc was just the culmination of several things that happened even before d-day, as listed by @Aesyle, and I haven’t seen those details before.
This is new to me.
I realized this when he was injured at the gate of the cannon site. Pretty obvious.
Ok, knowing all this I agree that the character is not shallow as I thought. It did not change my opinion about his death.
True. I recognized Veronica as soon as I saw her and made the connection with the main mission, her disgust for FNIX having the same voice as her dead friend caught my attention. Maybe that’s why I miss her more than Calle.
Have you not seen the bullet ridden bloody corpses left in houses with smeared bloody hand prints on walls, etc… Have you not played this game?
I’m also taking it as how I understood it. >Significant depth< - to us.
I understand your point and it applies to some extent as well, but I didn’t skip over lore. i was hyper-focused on the twitter posts with those addresses meaning anything and researching what BBS boards are, how they would work in GZ… Like that proximity it could imply and which house exactly from a farm he would send out messages to be close to Ostervik and post messages. Still, I felt he lacked depth at the interactions kind. So if your point is about those calling it lacking because they weren’t tuned in to the twitter posts and didn’t pay attention to the story, whilst shooting up mean machines with mean guns for the fun, then my perspective was of myself perceiving it.
Means we have more than one group of people to look at and understand other than the ones that don’t pay attention to the story at all. There are ones that still paid full attention (as much as was given, excluding behavior that may be like mine - obsessive) and still felt their connection to the character was lacking. I think it stems from a good real life example IMO - Don’t form intimate relationships over the internet, they don’t work. A physical connection (as physical it gets in a game) is much more impactful to a lot of people. It also depends on your type of personalities. Extroverted kind will find physically connecting much more appealing and may be the group you’re looking at split between extrovert those who paid attention and those who didn’t.
Could even be introverted type mixed as well who didn’t pay attention with the connecting part over a virtual character being less achievable.
I take it you had enough with his interactions to take his death impactful. I can’t determine that well how you fit in, because you’re pretty analytical, but also easily disturbed by the certain video we had discussion over previously. As I understand now, you’re suggesting your interactions with the character still ended up being impactful and swayed your emotional response.
Don’t think of me as a cold being, though… I do find well-written virtual characters impactful… Cyberpunk’s recently been my obsession over the story and characters. I only suggest I wanted to know Calle better and that the loss wasn’t very impactful, because I didn’t even get to say much of goodbyes either. Not like I wouldn’t have been happier for him to come out alive and we continued reinforcing strength within the small survivor group. Would’ve loved a drink with the guy to open up a perspective of his.
Same here, but because I finally got to meet that girl that was reckless, brave and actually smart about the situation before the events going down, I was very conflicted when she just left. There is just so much opportunity I wanted as a silent character to say or show things that we as the character saw. We had significant knowledge about everything and there was so much to be discussed there.
The game’s rating is very… out there… They can’t show much gore, because it’ll need them to re-evaluate their age rating and it all comes down to parent’s perspectives of the game. Some see you shoot some machines and say… oh it’s not blood, so who cares if the machines scream for their own existence and bleed fuel, but are just as cruel as the humans by mercilessly murdering and smearing said blood everywhere.
Where the line had to be drawn is… Decapitation is a possible result of the explosion… And remaining alive through pain is emotionally impactful, but also very brutal, because that person portrayed there is suffering by remaining alive. The line is being thread here by not showing how the life of a human is taken, but masking that. This’ll be a controversy in a few years, when AI looks at GZ and sees what humans do to machines
4 Likes
The scene I imagined was a little more bloody.