Tacoma wants to be about solidarity, but in doing so it glosses over the importance of identity within that solidarity. ![]() It could be argued that this is just an extension of the ways the companies within Tacoma have ceased to see their workers as human, but it feels like a more explicit sidestepping of the issues surrounding capitalism and race/gender/sexual orientation/nationality/body type, etc. Here is a notably diverse crew locked in an abusive economic system, and yet they are recognized only as crew members, each with a role to play but otherwise indistinct. In some ways, it almost feels like an accidental erasure of the diversity Fullbright went through the effort to create. Though it is believable that some tensions surrounding identity politics might disappear in the future, it seems unlikely given our history and current trajectory that these aspects would cease entirely to affect an individual’s relationship to an oppressive system. But I am not sure Tacoma is the right game for these stories. It is exhausting even as a white, able-bodied, cis man for there to be no place of peace where marginalized groups can exist and experience stories that are not only about oppression. It is important and necessary that we have games featuring a diverse cast of characters where those differences do not need to define them. And I’m torn about whether this is good or negligent. Capitalism has historically hit marginalized groups the hardest so it is curious that in the future Tacoma imagines, true equality has actually been reached. But as visible as these differences are, they don’t manifest themselves in the game’s themes of capitalist marginalization. The crew of the Tacoma is laudably diverse, featuring a range of genders, sexual orientations, nationalities, body types, and religions. Tacoma readily reflects the dehumanizing results of nation-sized capitalist companies, but curiously, tensions between individuals have all but vanished. In their video essay on Tacoma, Errant Signal noted even the design of the space station itself reflected the company’s inability to see its workers as individuals, with cabins designed as “one-size fit all” with no expectation of married couples or different body types. It is easy to see a station like the Tacoma existing not decades in the future, but years or even today if lawmakers would allow it. It is invasive and inescapable in a way that feels eerily familiar, with contemporary discussions of privacy questioning what constitutes digital consent to be monitored, and monoliths like Amazon being accused of forcing their workers to piss in buckets rather than stop production. Crew members attempting to go back to school are told they cannot do so outside the company network, and the company’s demand for total control and knowledge goes as far as to record crew member’s showering or getting cozy with their crewmates. As you rewind augmented reality recordings of the Tacoma’s crew, you witness tense conversations with separated families and couples who cannot guarantee they won’t be stationed apart. Tacoma goes all in on this theme of economic entrapment. Paralleling these changes are exponential advances in artificial intelligence which now threatens to render “obsolete” the few remaining human workers, if legislation is passed to remove the requirement of human oversight. Global currencies have collapsed and been replaced by company loyalty points locked to whichever mega-corporation a worker is indentured to. ![]() ![]() Tacoma is set in the 2080s aboard a space station of the same name. To borrow from father Marx, “there are no happy endings under capitalism.” Unions and activists groups can change the world, it is not just a matter of working together that is needed for these systems to change. But with Tacoma, it begins to feel like this optimism might be getting in the way of the message that actually needs to be heard. We need more games that champion our collective humanity and the importance of relationships. Gone Home and Tacoma let their characters live, in spite of all odds and precedents, and that is something to be happy about. Tacoma similarly sets itself up as a futuristic warning to the human price of capitalism à la Alien but resolves by pronouncing the strength of worker solidarity and grassroots activism. With Gone Home, they took the all too familiar story of a queer teenager driven to suicide from lack of acceptance and turned it into an ode to reckless love. If the title was not obvious enough, the following will contain full spoilers for Fullbright’s Tacoma, as well as the film Sorry to Bother You.įullbright is one of gaming’s most optimistic game developers.
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