Visions
E392’s article on Ultros – which I truly loved, by the way – brought to the fore the dialogue around games being potentially the highest art form available to us, should the auteur have the freedom and impetus to bear part of their soul to the player. In Ultros, the auteur’s position on humanity, theology and spirituality has seemingly bled into the work in a powerful way. And I agreed with some of the sentiments.
So, to games as art, then: Ultros, almost transhumanistically conveying the fraught relationship humanity has with technology and nature (we only have to look at the current furore around AI for an example of the former), demonstrates again that the indie game space will always push the artform orwards over triple-A. It is about creative and artistic freedom, something that blockbuster gaming, preoccupied with money, will never prioritise.
What is art, then? Art is to be left vague enough that the voyeur can interpret their own meaning or feeling
