Buried City

Observation

16:53

As I look outside the window, after looting whatever I could find in the building I spot another player. He's running past my building. I sit, just watching, delibirating whether its worth it to engage in a fight. Suddenly a bright beam hits the raider, it appears another party had already made their decision.

First engagement

16:51

Bang. Seeing the weakened raider run for cover I also make my decision to engage. As the raider attempts to run down the stairs to extract using the underground subway system I pull out my Anvil and take a shot.

Anotha one

16:04

The raider I was initially fighting managed to escape, or at least I lost track of him. Didn’t have much time to sulk about it however, as I suddenly hear the sound of a zipline. I quickly hide behind the wall of the apartment I am in, peek around the corner to see, what I can only assume to be the third party in the encounter sliding into a hole in the wall directly opposite of my window.

Second engagement

15:55

I observe for a little bit as the new raider leaves the hole in the wall to, I imagine, chase the raider we had been fighting before. Little did he know however I was still here lurking in the dark window. As he stands at the top of the stairs, the same ones I had just shot the earlier raider not 30 seconds ago, I again take aim and let out a heavy hitting blow from my Anvil.

No running away

15:51

The raider manages to escape my sights for just a second, as I am still surveying the stairs I catch a glimpse of moment. In the corner of my eye I see the raider running across the square in an attempt to escape and recoup some health and stamina.

Tagged

15:48

Can’t get away for long however. I quickly move back to the window and line up my crosshairs around the raider. Another shot fired, and another hit registered.

Violent world

15:40

The raider manages to get out of the sightlines available from my window, which means I have to move. I start to hear some interesting developments outside, just to the side of the apartment building. It seems the raiders tried to flank my building, but instead ended up running into a Rocketeer drone, a difficult predicament to be in, and I plan to make it worse.

Rocketeer troubles

15:34

The raider finally turns the corner and both me and the Rocketeer open fire. They do their best to find cover behind the shrubbery in the corner of the building, without much success.

Hiding

15:33

He is however not the online who doesn’t want to mess with the rocketeer. These things are dangerous and I am seriously ill equipped to handle it so I decide to retreat back into the safety of the building. In the corner of my eye I manage to see that the raider is still being lit up by the Rocketeer.

B10

Hands off

15:23

I listen, form the safety of my cover, to the raider being destroyed by the Rocketeer. I hear the conformation of his down through the audio cues of this raider meaning he is no longer to worry about, and I can drop by to see what loot he was carrying. The Rocketeer had now however turned his attention to me. Luckily I got some good cover so I should be able to just wait it out.

In a world where every interaction is tense, and loading into any game comes with a significant risk of losing whatever you brought in, it feels strange to walk around with the sole purpose of documenting.

“I would honestly say I don’t notice all the little details, but if they’re absent, I notice how empty the world feels in general.”

“Fake” paintings are strewn across buildings to suggest that a life was lived. Are these paintings images retrieved from somewhere, or were they custom-made by an artist working on the game? What narrative do they suggest?

The act of noticing in a curated world is mostly an examination of the care those who made it put into it.

As I trace artefacts from the fallen world that came before, I start to feel like an archivist—the only one who cares to document the traces we have left of art and culture, while the rest (rightfully) focus on survival.

Unexpectedly, I start enjoying playing the game in this alternate way. Finding and documenting little details in confined spaces becomes a new game in and of itself.

Often, I find myself investigating objects that would, within the universe, have practical uses but, in the context of a game, don’t. For example, an electrical box placed in a building: in real life, its design would be determined by function, but in the game, it is crafted to suggest function, allowing our minds to fill in what it might once have been responsible for.