Cruelty Squad, Corporate Artificiality, and Post-Pandemic Isolation

A few days ago I finally got the spark to try and finally finish Cruelty Squad, a game that's sat half-finished in my Steam Library for who knows how long. And honestly I can't believe something so epileptic has inspired me with so many ideas. Firstly, I'll give a brief summary of the game and its premise for the uninitiated (though I don't think I could ever do it justice within the length of a paragraph) to introduce the context of the discussion. Then I wanted to share my thoughts and the implications of the game, as least within my own interpretation of the themes within the game's art style.

In Cruelty Squad, you play as an empty, soulless husk of a man (whose name is practically pronounced "Empty Fuck") who is recruited by a professional corporate hit squad to liquidate unreliable corporate assets in a strange PS1 Picasso painting world smelling of sewage. The immediate first thing that cannot be ignored about the game is the explosion of neon and vomit-colored nonsense plastering every surface, and the absurdly dysfunctional UI. No verbal description could properly describe it, so I can only ask you to look if up. Your job is to carry out hits on lazy biocurrency investors, corporate traitors embezzling funds, and lousy politicians trying to ruin your profit margins. You can invest in the stock market with the funds you get from hits, and save up to buy implants which either completely trivialize your job or make your job absolutely impossible due to the severe hindrances. Abandoning all morality, you could sell peoples' organs on the "parts market" for extra funds. Or, the truly desperate can sell the disturbed creatures your find from fishing in the inner city rivers on the fish stock market in a desperate attempt to make more cash. 

But on top of your endless pursuit of a peak CEO mindset through your hit squad job, the prevalence of senseless violence and cruelty around all turns slowly reveals itself to be pointless due to the fact that most people can afford to resurrect themselves for only a small fee. Thus, even your own work as an assassin should inherently be useless. Your endless struggle for higher pay through harder jobs is no less meaningless than the chief officer of security you're sent to kill who claims to rotate time in his head, and the "chunko pop" enthusiast startup scammer who gloats over his collection before you empty his skull. The world in and of itself is senseless and completely artificial in a way no human today could ever come to understand. And yet the overwhelming chaos pervading every piece of dialogue and every misplaced texture feels undeniably purposeful in some way, even if you lack the understanding yourself to know what it must mean.

I think a common sentiment I can't help but agree with is the reflection of the current corporate era. It's an all too common message today, but Cruelty Squad drives it to such an incomprehensible extreme that there's no hope of even understanding the most basic interaction between people. It's like if an ancient Roman was walking through Times Square: overwhelming, artificial sights and sounds, the smell of chemical exhaust and refuse, the complete ignorance of one person to another's presence, and the nonsense jobs we do just to scrape by. It's hard to imagine what trying to come to terms with such a foreign would feel like, but I think that in a way Cruelty Squad is meant to emulate that feeling. There's a complete disconnection from feelings and reality within the game's world that mirrors our own gradual disconnection from kindness, empathy, and genuineness. I think it's fair to say the pandemic played no small part in this shift; I think there's been a growing complacency to stay within our own homes and social bubbles, and spurn everyone who we don't immediately need.

I know so many people, myself included, who choose to just order food and needs online rather than driving down to a store. Even if it costs extra, the price of convenience trumps the risk of connection and effort. With the continual growth of online social networks, online shopping and convenience services, and an uptick and radicalized online thinktanks, I think that many people have begun to suffer from their own isolation and self-obsession. Without a need to interact with people at work, at a restaurant, at a store, doing a hobby, or even on the street, we've become complacent to isolate ourselves from human contact. I'm most definitely a victim of this mindset, and I'm sure the fellow people using a Myspace clone in 2024 definitely have suffered from this too.

So what's the big takeaway?

If you too see yourself in this cycle of "chronically online isolation" or even feel like you've been relying on online convenience too much, just go try something new. Go to a new restaurant and say hi to the waiter, ask them what their favorite dish is. Make small talk with the receptionist at the library about a book you haven't tried. Go on a walk and call someone's dog cute. Interact with someone you've never seen, even if you know you'll never form some long-lasting friendship. Be genuine with someone even knowing it'd be so much easier just to stay in your lane. It costs $0.00 to be kind to someone, and even calling someone's pins and t-shirts cool will make their day and yours too.

The only way to break these cycles of cynicism is to take risks and stop hiding yourself. Be optimistic about the future, and you may have a better one yet.