Games can be anything. And yet, most of the time, they default to the same control schemes we’ve all seen a million times before. X is jump, the left control stick moves your character, the right stick moves the camera, and the right trigger shoots. There’s variation depending on the genre but, in most cases, you know what to do the second you pick up a controller. Which is why I love games likeDoom: The Dark AgesandRed Dead Redemption 2; games that aren’t afraid to try something new.
Reimagining The Left Trigger
Doom: The Dark Ages takes some getting used to if you come to it from playing other shooters. That’s because L2 isn’t aim-down-sights like it is in most FPS games. Instead, holding the left trigger readies the Doom Slayer’s shield and locks onto an enemy. From there, you’re able to press R2 to attack. That isn’t ahugechange from what L2 normally does — as in most cases, it’s priming the pump for an attack. But readying up for a melee move is significantly different from scoping an enemy before shooting them.
Red Dead Redemption 2 was a more radical shift.
Though if you’re a Doom fan accustomed toEternal’s acrobatics, TDA’s ‘stand and fight’ mentality mayfeellike a bigger change.
InRockstar’s 2018 western, you could hold down L2 to greet any NPC you encountered in the world. Once you initiated conversation, you had the option to Greet or Antagonize. If you Greeted an NPC, Arthur would say something cordial or even complimentary. But if you Antagonized them, he’d say something combative or insulting. You could even go back and forth, Greeting, then Antagonizing, then Defusing with an apology, then starting the cycle all over again.
If you ever want a laugh, go on YouTube and search ‘RDR2 Greet, Greet, Antagonize.’ It’s extremely funny to see Arthur be a big sweetheart to random people on the streets of Saint Denis and Strawberry, only for the player to decide that, no, actually, it’s time to be a little stinker. Inone particularly hilarious instance, Arthur can Greet, by saying, “Hello sir,” which prompts a grunt. He can then Greet again, saying “Good to see manners ain’t dead yet,” prompting another noncommittal grunt. Then, he finishes the combo, shifting to Antagonize: “But you will be if you look at me like that again.” This kind of stuff kills me.
There are dozens of combos like this, and they’re only possible because Rockstar turned L2 into something besides the ADS button. It asked, ‘What else could you do in a huge open-world game, besides shooting people?’ and found an answer that opened up all sorts of opportunities for expressive play.
Though, it’s worth noting, it could only afford to do this because it’s Rockstar.
The Future Of L2 Doesn’t Depend On GTA 6
It was a great decision and, though I expectGTA 6to bring back more traditional triggers, I would be happy to be proven wrong. I expect Vice City to be much more populous than the entirety of RDR2’s map, so recording multiple voice lines for every NPC would be quite an undertaking.
Regardless of whether Rockstar does it, I want to see other developers carry the torch. Since the PS1 introduced the triggers, they’ve become increasingly central to the way we play games and, since most big-budget games focus on action, they tend to be used for the same verbs over and over again. Even in the games I’m citing, you still use R2 to shoot. As players, we use controllers so often that we can stop seeing their full potential. But, with a little creativity, developers can unlock their full power.
