Games spend a lot of time telling us who a character is. We get biographies, costumes, voice lines, tragic backstories, cinematic introductions, and enough lore to explain why somebody has been angrily wearing the same shoulder pad for three hundred years. That information can describe a character, but it can’t make the player feel like them. Playable identity comes from action. If the game says I’m a detective, I need to investigate. If it says I’m a survivor, I need to manage scarcity. If it says I’m a thief, I need to observe routines, identify weaknesses, and quietly panic whenever a guard changes direction for absolutely no reason...
