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What I Imagine for WET
🕑 Added 2022-10-21 20:43:29 +0000 UTC
The biggest challenge of Rebooting WET?
Not just making it Black Lagoon.
Because it would be so easy.
As established in my Max Payne Clones video, they're tomboy mercs with duel-wield pistols, acrobatic combat skills, a fierce temper, tattooed arms, combat boots, endless swearing, and a four letter name starting in the letter R.
I guess Revy's is technically a nickname…
But all the superficial details are there, but the main reason it'd be so easy is that nobody would give a shit.
Yes, there are some diehard fans of WET out there, but all I know is based on Youtube and Reddit, there are fifteen year old PC exclusive sim-racers with bigger communities today than WET had at launch.
In a sense, it's not surprising the game made a minimal impact on video-games, because so did the work it takes the entire aesthetic of.
Grindhouse might've had two legendary directors at the helm, and is known amongst nerd circles, but by in-large, Grindhouse was considered a failure. Barely raking in any theatre attention, and giving Tarantino the ability to easily point people towards what he thinks is his worst film.
Grindhouse was something important to the directors inspired by the rundown theaters of their upbringing, it wasn't important to the general public.
Even if WET was brilliant, it placed it's bet on a trend that never really happened.
Ironically enough, that itself was a trend of the 7th generation, and something I really want to delve more into sometime, but back on topic…
It'd be so easy for WET to be something else. You could easily turn it into a Black Lagoon, Kill Bill, or Bloodrayne game.
It's a thematic blank canvas.
However, as the weeks have past, I can't stop thinking about a new dream project.
I don't have a design doc, just a high-concept.
It all started when I for fun made a playlist of music that I think would be suitable for a new WET game. Something that retains the game's distorted punk style without resorting to ear-piercing mixes and constant screaming.
Overall, I think I did a pretty good job, and have refined it even further.
Death From Above would be a pretty great supporter to shooting up Tony Hawk levels of gun-toting bad guys.
It got me thinking what should be done with Rubi though, because I don't want her to be Revy, Dante, or Lara Croft, even though she could be all of those.
What haven't we done with an action protagonist already?
Depressed hero?
Spike Spiegel.
Awoken avenger?
John Wick.
City dreamer?
V.
I think it's finally hit me though.
Rubi should be an artist.
Not literally.
She should be the equivalent of an artist in her world. She'd be a successful one. Highly successful. She's respected and recognized in all the major organizations and leaders in her world.
They know when she agrees to a job, she'll never leave it unfinished.
In-fact, she'll even impress her victims.
Heh. Heh. Heh.
What does an artist want though?
Freedom.
Rubi has a good amount of it.
When she's given a job. She gets to pick how she approaches it, what equipment to use, who to work with, how to travel, when to do it, and of course, how to kill.
Being a blood thirsty junkie, there's some componeent of living for the thrill. Dancing through the air, chaining together combos, sliding on the floor with both machine guns laying waste into somebody's demise… it's her passion.
Thing is, artists always want something more.
Many of them want to change the world, effect a mass of people, break down the ineffective rules of society. Yet, one person can never hope to do that.
So, individuals do the best they can.
One person will produce a deeply personal "comedy" special that mostly leaves people with an endless feeling of sadness and emptiness, about how we're feeding all of our personal lives into an impersonal corporate AI that knows us better than we do, filmed entirely in one space that's simultaneously impressive, and adds to this feeling of isolation and claustrophobia.
…that's then released and funded by a multi-billion dollar corporation.
We live in a world where Jon Stewart or John Oliver can openly mock the very companies funding them, not because they're sneaky and they got away without no one noticing…
But because those companies are too powerful to care.
One person can't do anything.
When that happens.
When all you can do is your raw passion, because the system prevents any greater dreams from being possible, there's a voice in your head that pops up every once in a while saying…
"Fuck shit up."
Now, I'm not brave enough to do that.
Rubi is.
Rubi's someone whose life-path in this game I'm dreaming of, is someone who knows they can't single handedly takedown the massive Mafias and companies fueling her passion.
She can't go on a warpath against them.
So… she does the next best thing.
Fuck with the system.
Get hired to kill a boss, and be hired to kill the boss who hired that boss to be killed the next day.
Dump explosives on a mob headquarters…
For fun.
Cut up waves of cops with your Sword because they're in the way of the Yakuza you're sent to wipe out.
Always cause more damage than is strictly necessary if the deal given doesn't specifically instruct not to.
Put your own personal stamp as a Mercenary in a world of Mercenaries.
Be the boldest, toughest, and scariest, not because you're unkillable, but unpredictable.
I've seen action heroes who are vengeful, psychotic, angry, happy, motivated, depressed, leaders, peons, inspiring, and pitiful.
I've only seen a couple though who deliberately dance in their pit of hell. Two characters that come to mind are Balalaika from Black Lagoon, and Yumeko Jabami from Kakegurui…
What if we combined them…
What if you had a player who is the embodiment of chaotic neutral…
This I think, could be Rubi.
Comments
K The Shy Kat
This is the coolest fucking pitch I’ve ever read
Trasen56
A competent character purposefully making life as difficult as possible simply to embrace the chaos reminds me of Archer.
