No matter what you were going to be in these games, you started at the bottom of the ladder. Under the ladder, even.
Video games like to make us feel special. They like to make us the main character in a story and give us the most important job or the most important part that no one else can play. Maybe you’ll become the leader of every group under the sun. Maybe you’ll save the world from certain death and destruction. Maybe, just maybe, as the chosen one, you’ll be the only one with the power to stop a great evil that has risen.
Or maybe, you’re just a nobody. You are the runt of the litter, and you have nothing to give. No, you’ll have to earn the name “mildly recognised, barely renowned” before you can call yourself Hero.
You start out with nothing in these games. You’re worthless. Aren’t computer games wonderful?
Outward
Like all good games, Outward starts with debt. In this game, you barely make it through an accident on your way back home. When you get there, an old woman has gotten the whole town to yell at you about money you owe, or they’ll take your house. How cool.
You have nothing but the clothes on your back and a small bag, so go out and make just enough to stay alive. Fame and wealth can come later, much later. You’d better work hard or you’ll end up talking to some bandits about spears. Or, you know, some animals that can’t talk, so they’re just stuck on the end of a stick.
Dragon Age: Inquisition
Even though Dragon Age Origins could also work, this one will do. In Inquisition, you start the game in chains because you were one of many people hurt in an attack on the assembly by terrorists. You were just a random person there, no one important, and some very bad things happened to you.
You made it through, and you might have learned something that will help you stop the damage in the future. But for now, how do those handcuffs feel?
Mount & Blade
This is true for both Mount & Blade and Bannerlord, Slope Game that came after it. In a game where you can control armies, countries, and the well-being of almost everyone on a continent, you have to start by making a dirty little peasant and giving him or her a blunt stick.
You can choose how much or how little you have, but you can be sure that getting known in this world will take a lot of effort. Even then, you can lose everything in an instant, so never think that your image will carry you.
Saints Row (2022)
The reboot of Saints Row shows how the gang of the same name came to be. So what does it mean to go back to the beginning? More debt!
You and your barely-getting-by friends soon get into situations that cost you all your jobs and positions. With so much school debt to pay off, the only way to make ends meet is to build a criminal empire and rule the underworld, so get to it!
Divinity: Original Sin 2
At the start of Divinity: Original Sin 2, you can choose to play as one of the pre-made characters with real stories, or you can make your own. This is your own nobody. A lot of prisoners are being rounded up and sent by boat to a jail for people who can do magic. You are just one of the people who are being sent away. At this point, you are definitely just another sad sack in chains who is being loaded up like goods and sent away, probably never to be seen again.
You might become more important in the future, like a god, but for now, you’re wearing clothes and relying on the magisters to get by. Good luck, because you have a long way to go before things get better.
Elden Ring
Many of FromSoftware’s games start you off as a ragged-looking peasant who has just woken up to a cruel and harsh world and is hoping desperately to be the one to change it. Elden Ring is no different.
Even though you might be the one to fix the world (or make it worse), many people have tried and failed before you. You’re just like all the others. What gives you the idea that you’ll be able to do it?
Disco Elysium
At the beginning of Disco Elysium, you wake up from a void of awareness. Just like you, your character has no idea who they are, where they are, or what anything is. You’ll keep trying to figure out what happened and get deeper into the puzzle, but you’ll have to start from scratch every time.
What’s a better way to start than to know nothing? Everyone around you will always tell you that you are a sad old man who is not in good shape. It can be hard to deal with, and you might even break under the pressure, but if you want to do well here, you’ll have to go against all odds.
Persona 5
There could also be other Persona games here, but Persona 5 is the most well-known. You really start out as no one. You’ve moved to a new city and school, and all you have to your name is a bad image and rumours.
You will become the leader of the Phantom Thieves of Hearts, and you will do a lot, but no one will ever know about it. You’ll start out with nothing, and everyone will treat you like any other student at Shujin Academy.
The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion
It seems like Bethesda likes to put us in chains, because The Elder Scrolls always starts with you as a prisoner. Should you have been caught? That’s up to you, but you’re always the nobody in the middle of chaos.
Oblivion starts in the Imperial City’s prisons, and soon you’ll be running away with the Emperor. Why? Even though the secret escape was in your cell, that doesn’t make you special. Don’t try to make yourself feel better. You can go on to do as much or as little as you want, but you’re just a normal person who got lucky and didn’t end up stuck inside.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance
You are a peasant in every sense of the word. In Kingdom Come: Deliverance, you start out as the son of a blacksmith. You live in a village and go to the bar, throw animal waste at your neighbours’ houses, and daydream about life outside of your small town. You can’t even read, I mean. You need to learn how to do that.
As a skilled fighter, you can go on to make a living, winning many fights and making more money than you could have hoped for as a right-hand man to important people. But you were never one of those guys who were important. You were just a boy from the country who didn’t stand out.
