The biggest trick Planescape Torment pulled was disguising its verbosity (a dazzling 800,000-word script) by relying on conventions and then quickly subverting them. As an immortal known as the Nameless One, you wake up on a death slab with no memory of how you got there. Normally, this would be an opportunity for exposition, a perfect moment to explain to the player, through a cast of characters, their circumstances, while allowing them to project their own identities onto a blank slate. But then a floating, talking skull points out that your body has many scars, including a tattoo on your back with instructions on how to discover your past lives. And it turns out that the story behind Planescape Torment is more personal. It's about unraveling the historical lives of the Nameless One, resonant with memories, rather than a heroic, altruistic odyssey to right a cosmic wrong.
And this is just one example. These tricks are clever sleight of hand, and developer Black Isle Studios reshapes somewhat established structures in RPGs with Planescape Torment. Take character creation as an example; You start by assigning points to your stats, but you won't be able to choose your character's class. This is because, by default, you are a fighter, and only by meeting certain characters or completing specific quests can you embody the thief or mage class. According to the game's design document, this is a deliberate decision by its developers, who wanted the player's actions to define their character, rather than allowing them to choose a class from a drop-down list.
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At the same time, wisdom and charisma were among the most important attributes, given how ridiculously wacky the combat encounters are. Instead of banging skulls, negotiating and even manipulating your enemies (and friends) can reward you with more experience points. The symbols of what constitutes a power fantasy have been demolished; Inferior beings are not likely to be banished with a simple movement of the finger. So while you may come across a combat upgrade or a crudely scribbled tattoo (Planescape Torment's equivalent of stat-boosting gear), the game undermines the importance of accumulating such supplies. Instead, what seems more appealing is the ability to unlock more dialogue options and narrative branches. Why gut a zombie when you can talk to it? Planescape Torment was the anti-Diablo of the 90s.
That said, even among the pantheon of RPGs of the era, such as Baldur's Gate, Fallout, Chrono Trigger, and the Elder Scrolls series, Planescape Torment remains a rarity: it is largely described as a “commercial disappointment” and is too unconventional, abrasive and self-deprecating. indulgent to appeal to RPG enthusiasts when it was released. Unlike the adrenaline and strategy of these games, Planescape Torment eschewed fluid, immersive combat in favor of inscribing each scenario with nearly towering walls of text and dialogue. The latter would have been tedious to follow, if not for its writers' ability to capture the minutiae of each interaction in copious detail. An inhabitant of Sigil is portrayed as a presence with an overwhelming sense of eternity, “almost as if this man were a shell surrounding a limitless expanse.” Another was a strange tale of a Githzerai Ach'ali, who was said to have asked so many “useless, unfocused questions” that “his island of matter dissolved around him and he drowned.” Fortunately, Planescape Torment never gets any less strange.
And since the game is set in the dark Planescape campaign of Dungeons & Dragons, Planescape Torment did not feature any of Tolkein's races, such as elves, dwarves, or goblins that appeared so commonly in other high fantasy role-playing games. Instead, various humanoid races live in squalor, with zombies, wererats, and demons roaming the underbelly and outskirts of the city of Sigil, and where beliefs can reshape worlds and bend reality.
Sigil, in particular, is deliberately disorienting and quirky. The ever-changing streets change according to the whims of their inscrutable ruler, the ominously named Lady of Pain. It is where the alleys whisper secrets and shake in agony. It is where countless interplanar portals that lead to various realities are hidden in plain sight. It is where anecdotes abound of unsuspecting inhabitants of other planes who have become trapped in Sigil against their will, when they accidentally enter the city through unmarked portals.
The streets are a mix of musky detritus and abandoned buildings hastily built on top of each other, with towering peaks and jagged architecture lining their boundaries. While Sigil is a completely uninviting city, it is also wonderfully fascinating. Each landmark has a personality that recalls the miserable lives of the inhabitants you will meet along the way. Even decades later, there has been no other RPG setting quite like that of Planescape Torment, where even the debauchery is etched into its very grounds and walls, its spaces infested with a growing sense of misery.
But to discuss the game's grotesque appeal we would be remiss without mentioning the companions of The Nameless One. They are a cast of compelling but eternally unlucky individuals, whose greatest folly was the sheer misfortune of running into The Nameless One. Morte, the chattering floating skull you first meet in the morgue, talks so much that his insults (“Flies wouldn't even land on your corpse!”) can enrage enemies and cause them to suffer damage penalties. But he will soon learn that her offer to guide him through his amnesiac journey is not magnanimous, but springs from guilt.
There's also Fall-From-Grace, who is a mix of contradictions: a chaste succubus who likes engaging in intellectual conversations so much that she became the owner of a brothel, one that specializes in intelligent and stimulating experiences, rather than pleasures. physical. There is Dak'kon, a fiercely loyal Githzerai who has sworn to protect the Nameless One for life, but is also tormented by his immortality. There's Ignus, a pyromaniac wizard who is the centerpiece of a small establishment known as the Smoldering Corpse Bar, and who you can recruit if you can extinguish his eternal flame. And there is also a walking armor, Vhailor, who is dedicated to delivering justice even beyond his death. They are all tied in some way to the miserable fate of the Nameless One, and their backstories are essentially a chronicle of magnificent catastrophes. Even more so if you decide to direct the current incarnation of The Nameless One towards committing unspeakable evils.
And then there's the matter of death: the one device that Planescape Torment is perhaps most remembered for. The ability to live forever (being killed but not killed) has affected the Nameless One with the inability to retain any memories, and this has repercussions beyond what was immediately obvious. As a player, your death does not mean the end of the game, but rather you simply materialize in the morgue if you have suffered mortal wounds. Sometimes this can be a way to help you out of a tight spot, such as re-entering certain areas of the game (fun fact: only the dead can access the morgue). But more than that, this transformed the purpose of death as a mechanic. Your death is referenced and remembered by others, who sometimes discuss the nature of your immortality. Dying is no longer a failed state; It has become another means of interacting with the universe and its infinite dangers.
Planescape Torment defines the genre not only for its fascinating scenes, but also for its horrifying revelations, imparted through its text and narrative devices: that past incarnations of the Nameless One might have been cruel in the name of pragmatism, that their deaths have condemned more than a town of souls, and that the unforgivable nature of your crimes may, ironically, have condemned you to a life of immortality. Its legacy is reflected in the fervent community debates that still continue decades after its release, and the influence it continues to have on modern games, such as the critically acclaimed Disco Elysium, which builds on Planescape Torment's love of the word written to also flood your world with paragraphs of velvety text.
That said, Planescape Torment hasn't aged all that well; After all, it's a 25-year-old game, plagued by resolution issues, unintuitive user interface, and tedious, repetitive battles. But these seem like largely technical concerns – problems that are sure to appear as technology advances – and that were largely ironed out with the release of an Enhanced Edition in 2017. Despite the years, the tragic story of torment, violence and mortality of the game has remained as such. outstanding and invigorating as always. I assume that in another 25 years, these traits will remain intact over time.