Who is Niko Bellic?

I feel that the current state of discussions about narratives, and more specifically the characters in them, tend to end up being arguments for or against one of these two designs. Either you know everything (embedded narrative) or you know nothing (emergent narrative). However there are a few good games out there willing to brave the waves of narrative. One of these is Grand Theft Auto 4.

The GTA series is renowned for its sandbox design. It lets you play the game anyway you want, do what you want, and make up your own stories. However in GTA4 there´s a slight change. The main character has a background story, he has a place in the world. But still you can do what you want with him. You can turn him into a raving psychopath who kills everyone around him, or you can keep him peaceful and only do the violent missions when you absolutely must. Of course the embedded story about Niko and him coming to Liberty City is something you must go through to play the game. So the game actively urges you to play it in a certain way. Let me tell you my story about Niko Belic.

“Niko Bellic came to Liberty city to visit his cousin. He quickly found out that his cousin had lied to him, and therefore decided to get a job as a cab driver. The city, being what it is, quickly let Niko into some criminal situations. He earned some money from them, but really hated doing the bad things. All he wanted was to settle down, far from the war at home. The money slowly built up on his bank account, he found a nice date (and some weird ones), bought a suit, and drove around the city in his cab listening to Jazz music. The jazz music was his life. He loved going to clubs in hopes of meeting the next big jazz legend, and some of his dates even started complaining about going to the same clubs over and over again. Niko hadn´t entirely left his criminal background behind him though. His cousin kept getting into trouble, and only one thing meant more to Niko than the jazz. His family. Killing to protect your friends and family was different than killing in the war, or killing for crime. It was to protect your rights. Getting caught once in a while threw Niko to prison, but he always managed to be released very fast. The Liberty City police system was very corrupt, something had to be done. Niko started killing other criminals, it was his way of protecting the city and his new way of life….now driving a Jag, listening to jazz in his fancy suit, and carrying a shotgun named Bertha, Niko knew that he was doing the right thing, and the sounds of Miles Davis was with him…”

I know that i am not the only one who has told different stories about Niko, and that is what intrigues me about this game. The combination of an emergent story and an embedded one lets you experience the story like the game designer wanted you to, but still leaves certain elements open for you to fill out. What type of music does Niko like, why does he do the crimes, and how does he feel about his family? Does he love them, does he do what he do out of duty, or something third?

I have not finished playing through GTA4 yet, so there might still be some surprises waiting for me down the road. I hear that the last chapter is exeedingly violent, and can ruin any player conception about Niko only doing what he does because he protects his family. I look forward to seeing how it all fans out.

My point here is. I feel that many games could learn a lesson from GTA4. Often we see games either totally embed the main character story and only letting the player “learn” these things as the game progresses. Other times we see the main character as a shell who is only judged by what the player does with him in the game. I think this is a bit sad. Some of my best experiences with games has come from the game telling me a story, but doing so by letting me make choices or by altering the story to fit my character. A game like GTA4 goes a long way to prove that it is possible to combine both the embedded stories, as well as the emergent player made ones. And i hope that other games will follow suit.