Operator, Come In!
Find out more about the player character, as well as a development update!
Before we dive into this month's blog post, we've got some exciting news! We showed off a new trailer in the Convergence Games Showcase! If you haven't already, watch the showcase and check it out! We also announced an updated release date of 2027 - this is because we've been busy working on the game, making it cooler, adding additional stuff and giving it an overall polish, all thanks to the wonderful reception from you all! So - a little longer to wait, but it's gonna be worth it. Now, onto the blog...
Burn-9 is in a very very broad sense, a role playing game, but only insofar that every video game is one in which you play a specific role of some kind. This role can be as abstract as ‘the heart of the wind’ or as concrete as ‘the human being playing this game’. Within Burn-9 the player takes on the role of the Operator working for Terminarch (A super future navy special operations group.)
The Operator is a codename/shorthand for the CO (commanding officer) or Mission Control for a Terminarch operation. The role of an operator is to act… well, much like an old fashioned operator. A physical go between of all the moving pieces trying to make the operation work. Someone who is looking at all the intel, and the maps, getting any new updates in orders and mission parameters and still being a bit separate and distant from the battlefield.
The Operator is meant to be the one giving any Terminarch force direct orders to accomplish what is needed on the battlefield. However, their position is also one of specific frustration and complication. They are not the commander on the ground who has to respond to the moment to moment action and they are not the ones declaring the wider operational goals of the upper command. In many ways this forces the operator into a situation sandwiched between command and field operatives.
Anyone who has had to work as a middle manager should know why this comes with a lot of baggage. The Operator has to talk directly to the people doing the real work and in many ways act as a buffer between them and the people in charge. It is often a frustrating position to be in, and obviously, by design.
The player is stuck as the funnel between the two biggest friction points in the operation. The ‘center’ must hold, and if it cracks, the operation fails. They have the most and the least power at the same time. This frustratingly specific position puts them in the center of the talking. Talking talking talking! Reading?! And talking!
The ‘tagline’ of the game is Tactical Radio Action. That’s the fantasy the game is trying to sell, the power of the right phrase said over the radio changing the fate of the world. That’s always the fantasy of being the tech in the chair, because often at the end of the day as the world becomes more and more of a technologically connected monolith, it is information that is truly valuable.
In the game’s universe, the Operator is almost always someone that comes from a counter intelligence and an electronic countermeasure background. Two very different worlds that seem to grow closer every day in our own world. The intersection between the real world and the digital world, that is the Operator.
Burn-9 will be a chance to immerse yourself in the role, in computer game form! Should be fun!
Until next time, 14 Hours out.