This article is aimed at viewers up to date with The Traitors UK, although it does not reveal the identities of any players who have left the game.
Three years after the British version of The Traitors, it can sometimes feel like the show's faithful have learned nothing. Seemingly obvious traitors still go unnoticed, while innocent faithful are being banished for harmless reasons. Shouldn't repeated play of social games—or the ability to watch others play them in previous years, at least—begin to prompt a more strategic response?
Well, yes and no, and in this year's series, in fact, some Faithful have used knowledge of the format to their advantage. But in an ever-changing, high-pressure metagame, progress is slow.
Last year, I spoke to Ivan Brett, contestant on the first season of The Traitors UK, author of several gaming books, and host of the It's Just A Game podcast, to get his take on whether knowledge of game design can give you an advantage. in social game scenarios. This year, I wanted to check back and find out if this season's Faithful flock really could have been doing something different. Can you really get better at social games through practice? And how does the new final twist change the game?
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“People are becoming more informed about the game, more familiar with the twists, and players are changing with the meta,” Brett says as I speak to him via video call. “You saw pretty quickly that when shields were handed out in episode four, the players understood that they could extend their protection. [by keeping who holds them a secret] to make the Traitors work a little harder to kill. There is the ability to protect more people and potentially catch a traitor as well. This has been done several times and it would be great if it hadn't already been done, but we want to see players playing at an optimal level with the resources provided. “This just makes it more interesting when people start coming up with new strategies.”
“No one is going to kill the person they have a rivalry with. In fact, it's really good to leave that person there.”
Still, there are times when players don't think strategically, Brett acknowledges, pointing to recurring arguments in which players are implicated in the murder of someone they “had issues with.” “No Traitor who's seen the show is going to try to commit a murder that they'll pin on themselves,” Brett says. It's too obvious a move, too easily traced back to the perpetrator, and it wastes an opportunity to murder someone more unexpected, something that also throws Faithful off the trail. “No one is going to kill the person they have a rivalry with,” he continues. “It's actually really nice to leave that person on the show, as seen in the first season, with Wilf leaving Maddie.”
But while players become familiar with those kinds of ideas, people won't get better at reading social cues, Brett believes. “That's never going to change,” he says. “The social readings are simply flawed, and people are not going to get better at hunting Traitors, because what you are using are just the clues within the program.” So how can you play better? It's difficult, Brett says, since social games like The Traitors don't offer a solid, persistent rulebook about what is “best.”
“You can play optimally, but the only way to measure how well a game is played is by comparing it to the metagame at that time,” says Brett, “and that will change each year based on what was successful last year. I just have You have to look at the interviews before the show to see that absolutely everyone tried to follow the model. [last year’s winner] Harry, which means that whatever Harry has done, they will try and do it. Except those who are smart enough to say, “Whatever Harry does, I won't do it.” That's the shifting meta. No matter what predominates, the best play is somehow determined by what came before, either sticking to it or changing from it, deviating from it.”
Despite the twists, familiarity with the format can at least help you know what kinds of things to mentally prepare for. I wondered, in episode one, how many of the players who volunteered to leave the train really believed they were leaving the show, having seen two players leave in the first season only to return later.
“The ability to predict the type of twists that will occur means that people are not surprised or emotionally affected like we were in the first season.”
“Understanding and even being able to predict the kind of twists and turns that are coming means that people aren't as shocked or emotionally affected as we were in the first season,” Brett acknowledges, “and instead are able to process it in a better way.” way more analytical sense and say, 'Well, how do I benefit from this? How can I extract maximum value from this situation?' “That's happening in this series to some players.”
This year it's been fascinating to watch players struggle with the reality that The Traitors is, at its core, a selfish game, as many social games are, even if in each episode the cast works together with the common goal of adding more money to the final prize fund. This year's tasks have included more elements for personal gain: shields to protect against assassination, but also the need to sacrifice money or the ability of other players to get shields in order to benefit. And then there was the clown task, where players struggled with the concept of being lied to by their fellow contestants.
“Dan was the first to say, 'I'm being selfish, I'm so sorry I had to do this, but in the end it's not a team game,'” Brett says. “We all realized that it was not a team game [in season one]but for some people it took a little time. The fact that Dan says that for the first time in episode three and is confident enough that he won't be banished just for being selfish shows a development in strategy and overall understanding of the game.” To some extent, everyone modes.
“I like it because British reality shows are far behind other countries (Australia, New Zealand and the United States especially) in allowing this kind of villainy to be celebrated,” reflects Brett. “The Traitors, whether they like it or not, have advanced the British public's understanding of what is permissible as heroic action. Before, on Big Brother, anything strategic was treated as villainy. The United States has 47 series of Survivor, a series much more strategic version of Big Brother. The formats generally work the same way, but they are always constantly trying to outdo each other and outthink each other and use subterfuge and villainy that way.
Speaking of which, a big twist in The Traitors format this year will take place in its finale, where the producers have decided to make a big strategic change. Now, anyone who leaves in the last episode will not declare to other players whether they were a Traitor or a Faithful, so the remaining players can no longer factor that information into their decision about whether to continue kicking players or ending the game. game and take risks. a traitor is still present.
The only real drama in an ending is: are there one or two traitors left?
“The predominant result is that you keep banishing players until you eliminate the one you think is your last Traitor,” says Brett. “By the time you get to the final episode, you know that there must still be one or two Traitors left, unless you've done very badly. But even if you've done well, there will still be one or two because when the Traitors get to one they are forced to recruit by ultimatum. So the only real drama in an ending is: are there one or two Traitors left and so the players can keep banishing until they have two people left, leading to the reveal just being if? only one or both players have won and they've done it before.”
More than a dozen seasons of the Los Traidores format have been broadcast around the world. Here in the UK, you can watch various editions of The Traitors US and Australia on iPlayer. So while we're technically on our third run of the show, a large portion of the UK audience will have already seen half a dozen different endings. And the number of endings that this format has is limited, without changes.
“Yeah [endgames] “They become a pattern, they become boring, and it's so important to stick the landing of each series that they can't take that risk, more so than any other show,” Brett says. “No one remembers the end of Love Island, not even The Last Week of Big Brother. It's almost always irrelevant. The Traitors always put a lot of pressure on the players, but you have to keep making it interesting for the viewers at home.”
So how will the end of this year play out? Unfortunately, in Brett's opinion, the change further tilts the balance toward a Traitor victory. “By removing any verification that you've gotten rid of them, Faithful will never have a good enough reason to finish the game,” he says. “I don't see how this benefits the Faithful in any way. Let's say a power group of three or four come to the end and trust each other, and choose to win the game. If there is a Traitor in that group, that Traitor will win. Or it might lead the Faithful to say, 'Well, now that we don't know if there's a Traitor there or not, to improve the numbers, we'll keep banishing until there are two of them.'” That doesn't make for good television either, he adds, since it will be done without any players revealing others as Traitors.
“I don't see how this benefits the Faithful in any way.”
“Some of the best moments are those reveals,” says Brett, “so this is a twist that comes at the expense of removing some of those brilliant unboxings. It's not an unboxing for the viewers, because we already know the roles of the players”. . But it's more about seeing how the players respond.” Instead, we're likely to see different types of moments of revelation, some we haven't seen before, such as a struggle by the Faithful over whether to end the game without knowing they've already caught “If we get to see this live, it'll be really interesting,” says Brett. “I'm excited to see it, I just think it'll probably mean a lot of Traitor wins until something else changes to balance it out.”
He believes there are still ways to balance things out even more, such as ending the Traitors' ability to recruit sooner. But this opens up the possibility for players to eliminate all the Traitors from the game before the ending begins, leading to a really strange, paranoia-filled ending where all the remaining players are already Faithful. “Again, you can't have that too many times either,” Brett says. But the future is not yet written, and next year's meta will only be decided after this year's finale airs. Who knows, maybe next year's harvest will wipe it all out.