Raven was a key NPC in the VRFPS game Field Battle. She handled ammo refills, unit arrangements, bounty notices, tips and tricks, and much more. She did it all, and she did it well.
The express purpose of her design was to outfit Field Battle with its very own original mascot character. She might not have been the most unique character out there, but she did manage to garner a fair bit of attention. In fact, I was pretty sure that a life-size figure of her was in the works, according to a fairly recent announcement made by—whoops, getting a little too off-track here.
“You’re yanking my chain. You gotta be.”
“Look at it this way: you’re officially this week’s top player!” she said with a great big smile. “Allow me to congratulate you.”
“Aw, shucks. I couldn’t have done it without you. Wait a sec, doesn’t that mean this game is officially dead?!”
For a brief period of time, Field Battle had been all the rage. Player counts wouldn’t dip below 100,000 even outside peak hours... yet here I was, all alone. Granted, the game had been leached of players by competing franchises for a while now, and the lackluster patches certainly hadn’t helped. Still, I marveled at how the mighty had fallen.
“It’s not just Field Battle either; the entire FPS genre is on its last legs.” I swiped the air, bringing up a bunch of windows. Paramilitary Company, Strait Jacket, Crack Hound, The Juggle, Seraphim Zone... Everything from futuristic FPS games to those with a World War II theme was effectively dead. There had been an obvious downward trend in user bases across the board.
I tried looking through my friends list. Wouldn’t you know it, none of them had been online in the past five days. To be fair, my total number of friends was just above the double-digit mark, but they were all hardened VR gamers who would easily sacrifice basic necessities such as eating or going to the bathroom just to squeeze a little more game time into their day. I didn’t believe for a second that these same people had been able to resist indulging in their favorite pastime for days.
“How? I mean, it wasn’t bleeding users that fast.”
“Enough to give the game developers a good scare, that’s for sure.”
I’m sure they appreciate you telling me this, I thought.
“Still, a game as big as Field Battle doesn’t just die out like that.”
“Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t. Who knows?”
“It’s the devs’ fault, isn’t it? It has to be.”
In that case, wouldn’t the users just migrate to a different FPS with better devs?
“It’s past peak hours and all, but it’s never been this empty.”
“Who knows,” Raven repeated.
Good thing Raven’s AI just happens to deteriorate when I need answers.
“Well, I am a lone wolf at heart. Getting close to other people would just make me weak.”
Brooding aside, I would’ve gladly taken a human player of any skill level over some bot. There was a gap that computers just couldn’t fill.
Raven just smiled and nodded.
So, what now?
I shrugged in an overly exaggerated, dare I say theatrical manner, when suddenly...
“Not you again!”
My stomach had just made itself known with a bout of intense growling, totally destroying the mood.
Guess I can’t fault you for doing what you were made to do, little buddy. Shame noise cancelers don’t work on these kinds of sounds, though.
“I’m off.”
“As you wish.” Raven bowed. “Best of luck, Hiroaki.”
“You too... Wait, what did you just—”
Before I could get an answer, my screen went black.
“What was that all about?”
Did she just mix up her lines?
“Best of luck” was the signature voice line used when a player was dropped onto the battlefield directly from the control room. It makes sense in the given context but not so much outside of it, especially not for logging out.
She’d also addressed me by my real name, unless I just misheard her. Players were required to provide their first and last names, addresses, credit card information, and phone numbers to complete the sign-up process—in case of microtransactions, of course—so the devs obviously had my name stored away somewhere. But the fact that Raven, an NPC, had said it out loud could only mean one thing...
My stomach resumed its protests, derailing my train of thought.
“Alright, alright, I get the memo.”
I’ll just press Raven about it the next time I hop on. Not like it’s a matter of life and death or anything.
“I really need to grab a bite to eat,” I muttered as I pulled off my VR headset.
I was immediately greeted by none other than my greatest enemy: reality.
There I was, in my six-mat room. Aside from the VR platform right in the middle of the room, there was little worth noting... just some cheapo furniture and lots of garbage.
“I could’ve sworn I had some snacks left around here somewhere.” I set my gun controller down on the bed. It was a perfect replica of the SCAR-H, crafted with meticulous attention to detail so it looked and felt just like the real thing. After that, I popped off my VR shoes and stepped off the platform.
My hand instinctively reached inside the bag of chips on the table... but, much to my displeasure, it was empty.
“I really should’ve gotten some shut-eye.”
Yes, who would’ve thought that pulling an all-nighter might have consequences later down the line?
What made matters worse was how physically draining these types of VR games were. Every single movement required manual input, and the heavy, custom-made controller didn’t help. It was only natural to get peckish after a long sesh.
That being said...
“That slop they’ve been trying to pass off as food lately isn’t fit for human consumption.”
To tell you the truth, I hadn’t had a decent meal in close to a week now, and my snack stock was running low.
“I still get nightmares when I think back to yesterday or the day before.”
My family’s mistreatment of me, the oldest child, wasn’t anything new. It had all started when I dropped out of high school halfway through my first year. For brevity’s sake, let’s just say it wasn’t for me.
Anyway, I had a lot of free time on my hands, so to keep myself busy I set out to dominate the Field Battle leaderboards for an entire year straight. Such a feat was bound to make me famous, and then I’d ride that hype train to my career debut as a pro gamer. Graduating high school, getting into a decent college, job hunting... I’d get to breeze past all that boring stuff. The freelance life came with the added perks of working from home and, better yet, no office politics.