u/Hot-Refrigerator5952 — reddlx

Written by me, word for word, translated into English.

Prototype 2 might be the only game that has ever “broken the fourth wall” for me in a way that felt genuinely offensive. Normally, no matter how extreme a piece of fiction gets, it doesn’t affect me in real life—I understand it’s deliberately written that way to express a certain critique. But Prototype 2 unintentionally constructs a kind of ironic moral dissonance. It is so absurd that, in my view, its narrative ethics are fundamentally flawed. I want to break down how exactly it creates such a strong sense of discomfort for me.

This is not about judging the plot itself. It’s about where the narrative ultimately assigns responsibility. It’s not about what is told, but from which position it is told.

The game swaps the roles of victim and perpetrator, then places the victim in a morally inferior position—granting the perpetrator the legitimacy to criticize, attack, and ultimately eliminate that victim.

In the original Prototype, the gameplay is a power fantasy, but the narrative is fundamentally anti–power fantasy. The story critiques the very origin of that power. It satirizes human aggression, the cruelty inflicted upon its own kind , and the way collectives crush individuals—while using grand narratives to justify their own violence. Prototype is, at its core, anti-establishment, anti-instrumentalization, and even carries anti-war undertones.

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Alex Mercer is a victim produced by the very forces the story critiques. His existence is the result of humanity’s pursuit of biological weapons. He bears no responsibility for his own creation. He is not the one responsible for releasing the virus and causing mass death—that responsibility lies with humanity itself.

Its narrative stance is very clear: it does not recognize the act of “human Alex” releasing the virus as its own. It rejects the consequences brought about by the outbreak. It does not want to be the virus; it defines itself as the product of a wrongful act.

From a causal standpoint, the original cause was not set in motion by it, yet it bears and repays the consequences through its own existence.

In the story, humanity has multiple opportunities to correct its mistakes and contain the virus, but history repeats itself, because human nature does not change. After Hope, Idaho is wiped out by a nuclear strike, they retrieve Greene and continue bioweapons research.

Humans tend to construct narratives to justify their actions, especially when they cannot bear the weight of their consequences. General Randall embodies this mindset at its extreme, he defines the nuclear destruction of Hope as “necessary cruelty.” In contrast, Alex is deeply remorseful about accidentally releasing Greene. In his dialogue with the Supreme Hunter, he explicitly calls it a mistake and tries to make amends. The act of “human Alex” throwing the vial to drag others down with him was not done by this Alex, yet he still says, “But he’s also a part of me.”

Prototype 2 flips this framework entirely. It legitimizes the power fantasy. The gameplay is power fantasy, and now the narrative rewards it as well. Power, in the hands of the “right person,” becomes justified as a tool for doing “the right thing.” The protagonist is no longer a being tormented by the question of his own existence, but a human hero who declares: I am powerful, therefore I will deliver justice.

The logic is completely replaced: power is no longer an erroneous byproduct but something to be cultivated and utilized. Infection becomes a form of evolution. The narrative perspective shifts away from a non-human entity born of error and returns to a human-centered notion of justice.

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Responsibility for the disaster is reassigned.

In Prototype 1, the source of the catastrophe is structural—human greed and the machinery of the state—while Alex is the individual who bears its consequences.

In Prototype 2, the source of the disaster is re-centered onto an individual; the human-caused tragedy of Hope is obscured, and structural problems recede quietly into the background. The narrative shifts from “structural responsibility” to “individual blame.” The issue does not lie in this shift itself, but in the choice of who is made to bear that blame: the individual now framed as the source of the disaster is the very one who, in the previous game, carried the burden of humanity’s wrongdoing—a being tormented by the question of its own existence from the moment it came into being.

An individual created by a system, forced to endure its consequences, is now redefined as the problem itself so long as he is eliminated, justice is served.

Is that really acceptable? From a narrative ethics standpoint, does this hold up?

It’s like pushing a creature into the water for no reason. It struggles to survive, and in that struggle, some people die, but it also prevents more people from falling in. In the end, those on shore point at it and say: you are the problem in the water. They call it a monster and drown it, claiming the water is now clean.

Or, to use a more blunt analogy: an innocent elven girl is infected by a disease caused by human actions. She remembers nothing and only wants to understand what happened. She kills many who are connected to the disease, but also prevents the entire island from being wiped out and works to eliminate the virus. Then people rewrite the story, declaring her the source of evil, claiming that killing her will end the plague. A righteous man who loves his family cuts off her arms and executes her while she kneels. Happy ending. The virus is gone.

The structure is identical. An individual who bears the consequences within a causal chain is redefined as the problem itself, then eliminated under moral justification.

I changed the subject to make it easier to empathize, because Alex, as a non-human entity, is inherently harder for people to relate to. Replace him with someone more sympathetic, and the structural issue becomes obvious.

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Why distort an existing character instead of creating a new one? Was it because they couldn’t let go of Alex’s popularity? Was the shock value worth compromising creative integrity?

The narrative choices in Prototype 2 effectively sanitize the perpetrators while vilifying the victim. Under the logic of the first game, Blackwatch and the human system are the source of the problem. In the second, the military is reframed as part of maintaining order, and James Heller stands on the side of “human order.” Colonel Rooks, a Blackwatch commander, is portrayed as someone who cares about his daughter and his family. Former targets of critique are stripped of their problematic nature, while former victims are turned into the problem. Through narrative framing, a victim is distorted into a perpetrator.

This is not to say that stories cannot depict a character’s fall or corruption—they absolutely can, and you may even choose to withhold sympathy. But you should not invert right and wrong, blur moral boundaries, or use the narrative to guide sympathy toward perpetrators while simultaneously directing violence against the victims of human wrongdoing.

Games are fundamentally different from written media. In literature, the audience can maintain distance. In games, the player is forced to take a side. Every mission the player completes builds toward killing him. In the final battle, you strike him down blow by blow. How many players who loved the first game hesitated, unable to finish that fight?

Why give him such a brutal, dismembering execution? Did he truly deserve that?

And what about humanity, the ones who created him?

How did the original perpetrators become the righteous judges and executioners?

Even purely villainous characters are often granted a measure of dignity in their endings. Elizabeth Greene, a product of human wrongdoing, is treated with a degree of sympathy in the first game. Alex even says to Randall: “You took something from Greene.” Even a villain was given respect.

Alex was not born a villain. He was forcibly twisted into one through a worn-out narrative framework, yet he is given a disproportionately cruel, almost punitive death.

What a masterclass in narrative bullying against fans of the original Prototype**.**

In the real world, humanity has committed countless atrocities through the manipulation of narrative—distorting truth, justifying wrongdoing, and shifting blame onto scapegoats. Prototype 2 replicates this exact pattern. The very behavior that Prototype 1 critiques is realized in its sequel’s narrative choices.

In the first game, Cross tells Alex that McMullen wants him on the dissection table. Tragically, humanity ultimately succeeds in putting him there. The villains of the first game win. The protagonist of the second game completes what McMullen and Randall failed to do—erasing and dissecting the “mistake.”

Why betray the narrative of the first game in this way?

If you disagreed with it, why not create a new character instead of exploiting and distorting an existing one?

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I usually regulate my emotional investment in characters, because emotions can interfere with interpretation. Over time, I rarely feel strongly about fictional figures. But Prototype 2 broke that boundary. It stood before me like a mirror, reflecting some of the worst tendencies of humanity, and it made me deeply uncomfortable.

I am extremely sensitive to the question of responsibility. I believe that those who cause a problem should bear its consequences. If you plant the cause, you must accept the result.

Alex did not plant that cause, yet he was made to bear the consequences and even the stigma that rightfully belonged to humanity. In the first game, that burden was part of his character. In the second, even his remaining narrative value is exploited to make him bear it again, this time through vilification.

True courage is taking responsibility for your actions, not retreating into the background and placing the blame onto an “unpopular” victim.

Humanity should have more courage to take responsibility.

Prototype 2 has no heroes, only a narrative execution of a tragic character.