Introduction
Narrative and politics–One indie game succeeds in fusing together these seemingly incompatible elements. That game is Suzerain, released in 2020 by the German company Torpor Games.
In this text-based RPG, you have become president of the unstable democracy of Sordland and must make decisions regarding political challenges from all sides–the economy, education system, safety, diplomacy, war–and even issues with your own family and assassination conspiracies. The game has attracted widespread attention for its unique characters and realist story that fully explore the dynamics of politics–something not explored much in games until now. The game has won numerous awards in Germany and abroad. Germany’s leading news magazine, Der Spiegel, praised the game as “probably the most realistic political game ever made.”
Our I.N.T. editing team flew to Germany in August of 2024 and conducted our interview with the work’s developer, Torpor Games.
Interviewed was Torpor Games’s co-founder and Suzerain director Ata Sergey Nowak.
Born to Turkish and German parents and having lived much of his life in Turkey, he spoke of the connection between politics and games, and even the ideal state of indie games.
<The following images include screenshots using unofficial Japanese localization mods, as well as some Suzerain spoilers.>
Interviewer and Editor: Jini
Interviewer and Planning: Daichi Saito
Author: Shu Chiba
Interpreter: J-mon
Photographer: JUMPEITAINAKA
English Translation: Caitlin Beggs Kojima
English Translation Review: Rie Ihara
The Masterpiece That Made Learning Politics Through Play Possible
Daichi Saito (“Saito” below):
I’m Daichi Saito, CEO of WSS playground. It’s an honor to meet you, Ata.
I thoroughly enjoyed Suzerain as a single player, and as a producer of narrative-based games myself, I have a lot of respect [for the game].
Ata Sergey Nowak (“Ata” below):
I’m Ata Sergey Nowak of Torpor Games.
Thank you for coming all the way to Cologne from Japan. It must have been a long journey.
Saito:
It was probably around 15 hours with the plane from Tokyo and then connecting with the high-speed train. It was an arduous trip. We had an incident where we purchased the wrong tickets… But we wanted to speak with you directly by any means necessary.
Suzerain is a truly innovative game that allows you to experience the reality and difficulties of politics while playing.
To speak of my own personal story, I studied political science at Waseda University, but Suzerain was easier to understand than any other textbook, and I’m convinced it can teach people what politics is all about–what sort of career being a politician is, what issues they face, what decisions they make based on what standards… What policies are considered left-wing versus right-wing… When you choose a certain economic policy, what sort of effect it has on realms outside of economics… What temptations there are and why one might succumb to them… That sort of dynamism is not presented in a dogmatic way but in a lively way, and I think it’s so impressive.
I think university students studying political science and those interested in politics–actually, even those not interested in politics–should give Suzerain a play, especially younger people.
Ata:
Thank you. I’m glad to hear that you grasped the intention we included in this game.
Actually, the younger generation was the first to play Suzerain. When we looked into the age ranges of players, we had a considerable number of players aged 16 to 29. This was an unexpected result for us. Originally, the initial concept for Suzerain was to allow the player to experience the political process in the safe environment of entertainment, and provide a chance for them to talk openly with other players about politics. However, we also assumed that the main age range that would enjoy this concept would probably be older adults. To our pleasant surprise, many younger people played the game and even began actively discussing politics. It was even praised in a Committee on Cultural and Media Affairs session in the German federal parliament as a tool for young people to cultivate a deeper understanding of politics and democracy.
Saito:
And I think that praise was correct. In the past, I belonged to a debate club called the “Oratorical Society.” It produced a few prime ministers. I, too, wanted to become a politician and asked to join, and I spoke of the state of the country and politics with friends night and day.
The club had right-wing members and left-wing members as well as those of other [affiliations], each with their own principles and positions. What I realized then was how hard it is to understand and respect ideologies that clash with your own.
A person has their own context for how they came to hold certain political beliefs and ideologies. However, that process isn’t conveyed to others. So when they try to discuss politics, both sides go straight to asserting their own opinions, and the discussion comes down to whether you agree or disagree.
This does not lead to understanding.
In Suzerain, you can test all sorts of ways of thinking through the diverse choices and [story] divergences. And you can also experience what it’s like to be pushed to make certain choices. Through this, you can see things from the perspective of people in different positions. Occasionally, you may even develop empathy for those with ideologies completely opposite to your own.
No other political teaching materials are as useful or engaging. I think this is only achievable with games. If I played this game when I was a student, the time I spent with my friends may have been more worthwhile.
Ata:
That is exactly our core. We’ve made understanding and empathy the core concept of Suzerain.
We precisely wanted Suzerain players to have a new sense of empathy for politicians. We made this game especially because we wanted players to experience what politicians feel and think in real politics while being called “dictators” and being criticized by the public. When discussing politicians and political advisors in the first place, we as a society tend to simplify their stories and categorize them as stereotypical characters. We show contempt for them as demon-like dictators or idealize them as flawless saints. I feel that such talk ignores their human nature.
The personalities and individual experiences of every person in every class of society should be equally respected. This is the foundation for open deliberation in a democratic society.
I believe game narratives have the potential to be a gateway to this.
Just as you said, stories in games are not read as just one straight plot; you can also roleplay the context and situations from multiple points of view through choices, divergences, and replaying. We brought out the possibility of this experience.
Growing Up in the Multicultural Environment of Turkey and Becoming Interested in History Through Games
Saito:
I’d like to ask you now about why you and Torpor Games decided to create such an extremely unique game as Suzerain. Where were you born? How were you raised? Who did you meet, and what situations did you experience? I’d like to learn your story.
Ata:
I define myself as a “liminal being with a multicultural background.”
I was born in 1993 in Turkey. My father is German, and my mother is Turkish. For much of my life, I lived between Germany and Turkey. I lived in Turkey until my university years, and since 2018 I have been based in Berlin, Germany.
I myself have dual citizenship, and many of my friends came from multicultural families as well. For example, I have French-Turkish friends, English-Turkish friends, German-Turkish friends… Of course, many of our staff members here at Torpor Games have complex social backgrounds.
I believe such a multicultural environment impacted the development of our personalities. That’s because when you live in a culturally diverse environment surrounded by people of diverse origins, your worldview is kept in an almost quantum-like state of fluctuation, and you gain a sense of differing points of view and empathy.
Saito:
How did you come across games?
Ata:
The first game that I consciously played was FIFA on MS-DOS. That and SimCity 2000. Being a sports game and a city builder, they were completely different genres, but if you think about it, both games connect to reality through different circuits. Perhaps this is what formed my current belief that games are a communication tool on par with dramas and novels.
(SimCity 2000)
Saito:
Were games also what sparked your interest in real history?
Ata:
Yes.
In the beginning, I had no interest in history at school. Instead, my entry into history was through historical strategy games such as the Total War series, the Stronghold series, and those from Paradox Interactive like the Hearts of Iron series. As I was playing, I began to want to dig deeper into the subjects that the titles dealt with, and I started paying more attention in history class.
What’s important is that I enjoyed these works as entertainment first and foremost. Games have a magnetism that breaks through the wall of reality and pulls us into a fictional world. If you utilize this tremendous power successfully, it leads the player to voluntarily educate themself and become enlightened. The source of this power is entertainment.
Conversely, I believe that even if a game is true to reality, an uninteresting game can’t arouse a player’s desire for more knowledge.
(Stronghold)
Saito:
So play sparked your interest, which showed you the pleasure of research, and that research led you to game development… What a beautiful process. Incidentally, I heard that you began your game development career by creating mods.
Ata:
It was Project Reality.
Saito:
Project Reality?
Jini:
Oh, Project Reality?! That’s the mod for the online FPS Battlefield 2 (BF2) touted as a masterpiece. I was super hooked on it for a while.
Ata:
I’m surprised to have PR players in Japan too (laughs).
Originally in BF2, players are assigned roles and fight as members of a team, but in Project Reality, that team play is further subdivided and developed. I mainly played in the squad leader position, and I refined my leadership and communication skills through that experience. At any rate, I was addicted. I must have played for 8,000 hours.
Jini:
8,000 hours is some serious play time. But I totally get how PR is involved here. It looks like any other FPS judging from the game screen alone, but the experience you get there is the ultimate battlefield roleplay. It’s about how you fulfill your role as a soldier or an officer.
Ata:
Eventually, I worked on the Project Reality production team as a tester too. You could consider that the start of my involvement in creating games. Through the mod community, I was able to bridge the gap between playing the game and creating it. After Project Reality, I joined the Black ICE Team, the mod team for Hearts of Iron III, and there I began truly making mods. I was mainly involved in creating 2D art sprites and content design, as well as being a community communicator.
Saito:
Black ICE is another legendary mod team. It’s been mentioned repeatedly by the official Paradox and is even said to have influenced the game’s development.
(The Black ICE mod for Hearts of Iron IV.)
Ata:
I threw myself into mods all throughout high school. I experienced lots of ups and downs during that time… I feel like I’ve grown up so much.
Saito:
So mods made up your adolescence. How wonderful.
Suzerain Was Born From Friendship
Ata:
Another important event of my youth in Turkey was meeting Ilke Karademir and Ozgun Kilit.
They’re the co-founders of Torpor Games [along with me]. I met them in 2007 when I was a 9th grader (age 14-15).
Even so, the three of us didn’t make games together at that time. Making mods was something I did later as a hobby. Instead, I often played games with them, and we gathered under the shade of the same tree during lunch break at school every day and talked with each other about school, studies, the world, anime, love…all sorts of topics about life.
Saito:
What was the process that led you to create Suzerain with such close friends?
(The three co-founders.)
Ata:
Actually, all three of us were making games and mods, but we had never gotten together to make anything. We still kept in touch ten years after graduating, but we each took different paths.
However, even when we were apart, we were in close contact, as if we never stopped spending time under that tree in high school. Topics about games especially always brought us close together.
Looking back on the intellectual discussions I had with them, an idea suddenly came to me.
There were lots of games in which you play as a commander or a leader and carry out war or politics, like Hearts of Iron and Total War that I just mentioned, However, these games were purely for the enjoyment of strategy and tactics, and to focus on these aspects they always completely did away with narrative and humanity. In response, I thought that rather than being mechanically system-based, wouldn’t it be good to have a game that delves more deeply into the emotions and experiences of politicians as humans, like an RPG or ADV? I couldn’t contain myself, so I called Ilke on the phone that day.
I said, “I have the best idea: a genre that no one has pioneered before.”
That was three years prior to our founding of Torpor.
I’m truly grateful to those two.
In the initial stages of development, we were really tight on finances. The three of us couldn’t eat on game development alone, so we took up other full-time jobs. Once, my personal bank account had a balance of negative 1,700 euros, and I was on the brink of bankruptcy.
Nevertheless, we supported each other, and we held nothing back when it came to exchanging opinions about the game’s content and direction. We never let the flames of our friendship die out.
Our sharing and discussing of topics over all those years became my life itself and the foundation of our work.
Jini:
I see. I completely understand the metaphor of breathing humanity into Paradox works. In that respect, it’s interesting that Suzerain is set in a completely fictional world as opposed to that of Paradox works, which are historical simulations based on historical fact. That is to say, in Paradox games, the progression of the historical events is already in the player’s head before they start playing the game. On that premise, the games are interesting as simulations in which you can follow historical fact or choose a completely different path.
In contrast, Suzerain players must learn the national history and international affairs of the country of Sordland from scratch as they play. I believe the delight of learning about such a world is what makes Suzerain great.
Ata:
It’s like the difference between a historical novel and a fantasy novel. Learning about the surprising aspects of established facts and learning about unknown events from scratch are each interesting in their own way.
From a creator’s standpoint, there are pros and cons to creating a fictional world in its entirety.
The pros would be that the creators have a lot of room to explore things. They can paint on a completely blank canvas with the brush of imagination however they want, creating an incredibly rich world and story. This is a difficult endeavor in historical fiction which is constrained by historical fact.
On the other hand, the cons would be…that the creator is obligated to explain everything about the fictional world to the player. This is a hassle. But if you’re careless in how you present the setting, you’ll bore the player.
Saito:
I, too, was consistently impressed that Suzerain was fiction. Specifically, the characters. The game features various characters, including the president and main character of the work, Anton Rayne, his close aides, his family, and even his driver. I would love to hear about how you came up with these characters.
Ata:
We assembled the story by first creating a character sheet with the profiles [of each character], arranging them in a relationship chart, and then imagining what sort of character roles would be interesting to have in the world.
But we first looked to characters of pre-existing fiction and real-life people to get ideas for probable characters. For example, we asked, “How is Zelenskyy seen? How is Putin seen? Merkel? Erdoğan? Assad?” We considered the psychology of past leaders and arranged and formed the potential branches of what the main character, Anton Rayne, could be little by little.
Saito:
I can see how that would lead the characters that appear in Suzerain to all be so full of humanity.
The vice president and very close friend [to Anton], Petr Vectren, is a good example. He’s an alcoholic and a womanizer, and he’s an incompetent, bothersome person. But at the same time, he’s quite human and charming.
In the game, you are faced with the decision of cutting him out, but I’m not able to bring myself to do it. I always think about how I can save him.
(Close friend Petr.)
Ata:
That emotion that you feel is exactly what we wanted to evoke through the characters’ depictions.
Not every human is perfect. Sometimes you realize that those close to you have completely different morals to your own. Or that person may unintentionally damage your social standing.
Some friends may not suit your own interests or morals and you’re faced with the question of whether you can remain friends…That’s the sort of difficult questions we want to present through the game.
Saito:
As a game themed around politics, I didn’t expect it to make me seriously ponder on the topic of friendship.
Ata:
If possible, we want to avoid dissolving our friends in acid.*
*The player can choose to dissolve Petr in acid.
Student Years During Turbulent Times
Saito:
While you and your friends were on different paths, what sort of experience did you have? Guessing from Suzerain’s depth, I’d say that you studied politics or history…
Ata:
Actually, I majored in interpreting and translation in college, though when I entered college, I was unsure whether I really wanted to be an interpreter or translator.
But the experience of the subject itself was beneficial. Through the process of learning interpreting and translation, I gained a lot [of insight] on topics I had been interested in prior, such as politics, international affairs, diplomacy, and trade.
Saito:
So in that regard, Suzerain is also based on academic knowledge.
Ata:
At the same time, it’s also based on my own identity as a dual-national of Turkey and Germany.
A lot of events occurred during my university years especially that forced me to be aware of politics and nations. Specifically, since the consolidation of the Erdoğan administration in 2011, those within Turkey began to become radicalized to either the left or right, steadily transforming the structure of government and the mood of society.
There was a failed attempt at a coup in opposition to Erdoğan, among other things, and many people feared the return of a military regime like that seen in the 80s.*
When I decided to spend my university years in Turkey, my mother told me she was overcome with anxiety at sending me to Turkey (instead of Germany) for university at such a period.
My mother was in college during the 80s, so she is well-acquainted with the oppression of the time.
We barely managed to avoid becoming an oppressive world like the one back then. Even so, corruption scandals came to light one after another. The masses, displeased by the government’s corruption, stood up and held demonstrations, named the Gezi Park protests, which I joined as well. They are said to be some of the largest protests in the history of Turkey.
(*The September 12th coup d’état that occurred in 1980. In the late 1970s, Turkish Chief of Staff Kenan Evren and others staged a coup to suppress political riots by far-right and far-left groups known as the Grey Wolves and the TKP. The riots were suppressed, but more than 80,000 people were imprisoned. The image above shows a protest that took place in Turkey in 2013.)
Jini:
In Japan, too, the Tohoku earthquake triggered large political waves over the restarting of nuclear power plants and the government’s response.
However, the movement has become very half-hearted in present times. Japan’s low voter turnout in recent years has also been pointed out. It’s what you call political apathy.
Ata:
Lack of participation in politics is a common challenge for all of us living in the present.
Even in a democratic system, only a small number of people have the authority to intervene directly with the system. The great majority of people who don’t have this authority eventually develop a sense of alienation in politics. What we discovered when doing research for Suzerain was the fact that we have very little agency in the political process.
The sense that you aren’t involved in politics hinders citizens’ political participation, giving even more power to the system. For the system with greater power, citizens who participate in politics are a nuisance. That is why they try to separate them even further from politics. This cycle of alienation and political power fortification instills the people with a sense of powerlessness.
Saito:
The term “agency” may be somewhat unfamiliar to our Japanese readers.
Ata:
Let me give you a metaphor using games.
There are linear games that progress along a prepared narrative, and there are non-linear games in which the story diverges based on the player’s free choices and actions. In non-linear games, the player is given the power to choose their future to some extent. This is why the experience of playing a game feels more personal.
When this happens, you are the main constituent doing the action, and you sense your own autonomy or “agency.” This feeling triggers your next action, and the actions after that.
Saito:
And that is exactly the storytelling in Suzerain.
Ata:
Exactly. The fact that games are interactive actually makes them well-suited for expressing political participation.
I always have the question, “How do I make everyone think about politics? Is there a means of doing so that is unique to games?”
What’s Needed for Creating Games is Research
Saito:
I have a strong interest in using video games to deal with political themes, as is the concept of your work. From this standpoint, please tell us what you focused on when creating the game.
Ata:
Above all else, research.
Research is very important, not only for games that deal with history or politics.
We searched a wide range of literature and sources on historical studies, political science, sociology, philosophy, and ideology. That research included works like The Art of War, Machiavelli’s The Prince, and Max Weber’s Politics as a Vocation. We were also inspired by fictional dramas themed on politics and related themes, like The Crown and House of Cards.
Ata:
In the process of gathering material, we made two discoveries that are important for creating games.
The first is that history is made up of patterns of recurring events.
There’s the saying, “History repeats itself.” Humans have acted out similar tragedies and comedies, even in differing time periods and regions. By extracting such patterns, we are able to include a universality in our game.
The second is multiple and diverse points of view.
One person can have a completely different impression of the same event from another person. By approaching political topics from multiple angles, you’re able to scoop up often overlooked nuances and provide the player with new viewpoints. Since this is a game dealing with politics, we were especially thorough in this regard.
It’s also important to research already existing games.
We didn’t limit ourselves to only strategy games but also played pre-existing games that were close to the themes we wanted to portray.
To be specific, those would be Obsidian Entertainment’s Tyranny, various strategy games from Paradox, and Osmotic Studios’ Orwell: Keeping an Eye On You.
By learning about the history of games and game genres, you can get the inspiration required for your game while also avoiding the folly of reinventing the wheel.
(Orwell: Keeping an Eye On You)
Saito:
Suzerain is multi-ending. In one ending, you’re re-elected as president and the game comes to a close in delight, while others end tragically in either assassination or coups. Is there a “true ending” among them?
Ata:
I personally like the retirement ending. You leave the tumult of the political world and spend the rest of your life relaxing on the beach. Wouldn’t that be a nice way to spend old age?
Jokes aside, we didn’t decide on an official “correct” ending. I believe winning and losing in games is simply a convenient design used to attract players.
What we want to convey is whether you can experience vicariously the lives of politicians as the same human species. And the politicians of history lived their own lives. To rank their lives as superior or inferior is impossible.
However, since it is a game, it won’t sell unless you add some elements giving the impression that you’re winning or losing. Preparing multiple endings was one of those tricks, though I feel ashamed as if we are tricking the players.
Saito:
Regardless of whether “superior or inferior,” there are scenarios where you get involved in blatantly evil things. Examples would be the bribery and assassinations, and if you play the game right you can rewrite the constitution and laws to focus more authority on yourself. But committing wrongdoings within the game has a strange pleasure to it, as is the case with other games.
Ata:
We wanted players to experience how mechanisms of abuse of political power work in the real world.
When we are in a more powerful position than others, it’s easier to satisfy our egos with the desire to steal what we want and hurt others. Some people can get more and more consumed by that desire.
In real life, you can observe this not only in the political world but also in everyday personal relationships.
Saito:
At the same time, it seems that the country of Sordland itself is structurally designed so that you must be evil.
(The temptation for fraud.)
Ata:
That also fits into our philosophy of “understanding and empathy.”
You can only include a limited number of experiences in games. You must carefully select the best experiences to give the player. One experience we aimed for was to force the player to take actions they would not normally take by creating a situation in which they’re faced with a difficult moral decision.
Humans can’t empathize very well with others with whom they have nothing in common. Conversely, when you’ve had a similar experience with someone, you develop empathy for that person. We tend to ethically criticize the lives of people who have done misdeeds from the outside. However, once you learn the path that led them to commit such acts, you feel more than just simple blame. When it’s a game, you can vicariously experience this state of mind in an impactful way.
Don’t forget that there are always choices presented in your actions as president. You can remain clean-handed so long as you have the willpower. But you must accept the consequences of your choices.
Japanese and German Indie Culture
Saito:
Your publisher at the time of release, Fellow Traveller, is an Australian company. Were you not able to get support from German companies or organizations?
Ata:
The business culture in Germany is conservative, not just for the gaming industry. The country and industries are reluctant to take chances with ventures or attempts at something new. In Germany, having grand dreams or visions is usually not encouraged very much.
Looking at America and other European countries like Sweden, France, United Kingdom, I’m jealous of the backup they receive from various areas. They’re not only given aid; the creators are provided with the practical support that they need. That’s incredible. I think such support systems should exist in all countries. What is it like in Japan?
Saito:
Speaking from a Japanese indie publisher’s position… Hmm, I wouldn’t say there aren’t any, but… Well, perhaps it’s not as robust as it could be…
Ata:
I had a feeling that was the case. Germany and Japan are similar after all. (laughs)
Saito:
One characteristic of the Japanese indie industry is that few take up the form of startup companies. Most cases start out as a hobby or side gig or as doujin.
Japanese indie developers in the 80s and 90s had the route of growing from the position of a subcontractor working for a major company. Game Freak, the creator of Pokémon, is a prime example. Thinking about it now, that game could be considered an indie game in the truest sense.
(Pokémon Red)
However, the Japanese gaming industry nowadays is faced with rapid structural changes due to the growth in the PC gaming market and the decline in the mobile gaming market. Major publishers are reducing their number of projects, which is putting smaller developers at a disadvantage.
Ata:
All around the world, small developer companies are tragically dragged into the funding logic of major companies and having their futures snatched away. Recently, there have been numerous news stories about small and mid-scale developers being bought out by larger companies and then being dissolved at the convenience of the larger company, though this has been happening for a number of years now.
Even indie companies, with all their potential for growth, may soon vanish when they are bound by the demands of investors and large companies and crushed if they can’t quickly achieve results.
Saito:
Even the larger companies were indie once. Most games in the 80s and 90s in Japan would have been considered indie by today’s standards. Japan’s gaming industry should always be aware of this, and I’m proud to be part of the Japanese indie pedigree.
Ata:
If we only give approval for the efficient pursuit of profit, we’ll get stuck in our existing ways of thinking, and creativity will wither and die. In that sense, indie games may be a good testing ground for creating new viewpoints.
Saito:
I know what you mean. Indie games should be created as a symbol or representation of some group, like “repping” them. It’s about picking up culture overlooked or looked down on by major companies. And sometimes, the major companies follow suit.
Ata:
We indie developers may be the R&D (research and development) agents of the entire gaming industry.
Once a major game company establishes a methodology of sure success, they tend to hold back on adventurous experiments. Conversely, the way to succeed for indies is experimentation and breaking the mold.
Picasso once said, “Good artists copy, great artists steal.” All we can do is remember our respect for artists we have copied or stolen from while hoping that our followers create even better works.
Being open to everything may be what is important for creative work.
Saito:
And me delving into game journalism here while also being a game producer is exactly that.
Indie games don’t come about overnight from nothing, like a miracle or magic. Everyone works hard and steadily to make them, and there’s the history of the game as a whole and the developer’s personal background. I want to find out about these things, share these new viewpoints with everyone, and sow the seeds of understanding and empathy.
With this accumulation, maybe someday a creator making a small game in their bedroom right now will make the next Pokémon. That’s my belief.
DLC, Translation, and the Next Work
Saito:
Lastly, I’d like to ask you about the DLC for Suzerain and prospects for your next work. First, about the DLC, Kingdom of Rizia: it was released in March of this year.
(Kingdom of Rizia)
Ata:
It’s a story set in the same universe as Suzerain’s main story, starting four years prior and running parallel until the end The player. takes on the role of the Kingdom of Rizia’s king, Romus Toras. You can exercise your kingly power by issuing decrees, which allow you to easily change policies and construct buildings. The choices you make in Suzerain impact the DLC’s story.
Saito:
The stage of Suzerain’s main story, Sordland, was a democratic nation, while the Kingdom of Rizia in the DLC is a monarchy. Why did you go with a monarchy theme?
Ata:
Actually, the main point was not only to bring to light the nature of a monarchy itself but also how it goes hand-in-hand with the mechanism of a strong centralized authority, rather than having the player experience being a king. And in particular, how power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
King Romus Toras can control more things than President Anton Rayne however he wishes. The parliament of Rizia is reduced to a formality with little power to curb the king’s authority. These circumstances contrast with Suzerain’s main story and expose what democracy really means.
Jini:
I heard there will also be a third Suzerain DLC. Incidentally, what about your completely new work, The Conformist?
(The Conformist)
Ata:
The Conformist is a whole new game and the prequel to Suzerain, set 20 years before it. In contrast to Suzerain which was a story from the standpoint of a statesman viewing his country, the story of The Conformist is told from the lower government position of the “Propagandist” who is in charge of propaganda.
The system has been completely changed and is set to be closer to that of an RPG.
The genre may be considered a “semi-sandbox RPG.”
I bet if you play Suzerain again after playing The Conformist, you’ll be able to experience it from a completely different perspective.
Ah yes, and a young Anton Rayne appears in the game too!
Saito:
It sounds interesting that it’s a different perspective from the Suzerain main story and DLC despite being set in the Suzerain universe. Are there any new elements you want players to notice?
Ata:
The biggest selling point of the game is the propaganda influence system.
The actions the player takes on certain quests impact individuals and organizations, altering the landscape of the capital the main character observes. Also, you can travel to various locations in society, observing the effects on organizations, places, and individuals.
We’d like the player to learn ways of changing the world using this system. The implementation is pretty difficult though…
Saito:
Game developers have a tendency to set lofty goals for themselves, don’t they? But I’d love for you to make the game a reality. I’d like to make a game themed on politics myself someday, so I would appreciate your advice when that time comes!
Ata:
Of course!
Afternote
Can games allow players to experience politics?
Suzerain gives an emphatic answer to this perhaps ironic question: They can. In fact, games can depict politics more realistically than other forms of media precisely because they are games.
Three young men, born in the country of Turkey sandwiched between Europe and Asia, launched their game company in Germany. That itself is a story symbolic of Germany with its large population of Turkish immigrants. These young men extracted universality from their personal experiences and turned the story of a man in a unique position, the president of a revolutionary country, into a story that anyone in any country can empathize with.
And games could become a tool for this. Suzerain is the first step in expanding the possibilities of games as a whole.
This is not a just dream; we caught a glimpse of this in Germany. After a four-hour-long enthusiastic interview, a young Japanese man from the other side of the world shook hands firmly with a young man from Turkey, promising to meet again. In that moment, there existed empathy and understanding made possible through a game.
The same sort of encounter can happen in other places and between different people.
After all, history has a tendency to repeat itself.
