I've been playing Final Fantasy XIV for nine years, which is a mildly alarming sentence to write down. Nine years is long enough for jobs to change, friendships to begin and end, and hobbies to come and go. Some of my real-life friendships haven't lasted that long.
If FFXIV announced tomorrow that it was shutting down permanently, I know I'd grieve my character. It would feel a little like losing a close friend. That sounds slightly unhinged when we're talking about a collection of pixels stored on a server somewhere, but I've had nine years of emotional investment in her.
I think that's one of the reasons RPG characters become so important to us. The character may be fictional, but we spend real time experiencing their world through them.
My character isn't someone I play. She's me.
People inhabit RPG characters differently. Some create a completely separate person with their own backstory, motivations and personality. When the game presents a choice, they might deliberately choose something they personally wouldn't because that's what their character would do.
I understand that kind of roleplaying, but it isn't how I've ever experienced my Warrior of Light. I won't tell you her name because some things belong to Eorzea, but she is me there.
I don't feel like I'm sitting outside the game driving her around. I also don't stop at a dialogue choice to ask myself what she would say. When an NPC speaks to her, I experience that interaction as mine, and another player interacting with her is interacting with me.
She's simply the form I have when I'm in Eorzea. Apparently I've become rather attached to having a form in Eorzea.
Nine years is a ridiculous amount of life to share with some polygons
My character hasn't actually changed very much over those nine years. I've changed and my life certainly has, but the way I choose to exist in Eorzea has remained surprisingly consistent.
I've levelled every battle job to max, which sounds impressive until I confess that I only really know how to play one DPS class. I've also tried Savage raiding and cleared a few fights, but nobody should mistake this for evidence that I'm particularly good at it.
The game makes me a legendary hero capable of slaying gods, saving nations and preventing the occasional apocalypse. Given this enormous fantasy world and all that heroic responsibility, my preferred endgame is apparently domesticity.
I am a feral crafter.
I love making gear for my friends and decorating houses. Over the years, I've accumulated enough gil that I don't need to charge anyone for the things I make. If a friend needs something and I can make it, I make it for free because that makes me happy.
The Main Scenario Quest has never paused midway through an existential threat to Eorzea and instructed the Warrior of Light to go make someone's trousers. That's entirely my own contribution to the story.
Perhaps that's part of what makes an RPG character become so personal. Eventually they don't just contain the story the developers wrote for us. They also become a record of all the little things we chose to do when nobody was telling us what to do.
Give someone another world and enough time to live in it, and you'll eventually find out what kind of life they want to build there. Mine apparently involves an alarming quantity of crafting materials.
Then the game gives you people
Our own characters are only half of it. RPGs also have the rather rude habit of introducing us to fictional people and giving us dozens or hundreds of hours with them. Then they expect us to remain emotionally sensible about it.
Final Fantasy XIV has been particularly inconsiderate in this regard.
There is, for example, Emet-Selch, and I can't even. I've had several years to find a thoughtful and articulate way to explain what that character did to me. Apparently we're still at I can't even.
Emet-Selch is one of the finest examples I've encountered of a villain whose actions I cannot agree with while still understanding what drives him. A good villain doesn't need to convince you that the terrible things they're doing are secretly okay. They should, however, be able to make you understand how they arrived there.
With Emet, you understand the grief behind his choices and what was lost. You can see why he believes that loss is worth almost any cost, even while watching him make choices you cannot follow him into.
That's what makes him so effective for me. His purpose is noble even when his decisions aren't. Apparently understanding why someone is doing something terrible is quite enough to ruin my afternoon.
And then there's G'raha Tia
G'raha gets me for almost the opposite reason. His sacrifices aren't small, but none of them seem to make him believe he's entitled to anything in return.
He remains humble despite everything he's done, and he's still perfectly capable of fangirling over the Warrior of Light. I adore him for it.
If you watch Doctor Who, G'raha makes me think of Rory Williams, the Last Centurion who waited two thousand years for Amy. Apparently I have a type when it comes to fictional characters. That type is will perform a frankly unreasonable act of devotion and then behave as though it was no trouble at all.
Splendid. I'm sure this says nothing whatsoever about me.
The big moments aren't the only ones that matter
It's easy to explain attachment through characters like Emet-Selch and G'raha because their stories contain enormous emotional moments. I don't think those moments are enough by themselves, though. A lot of attachment comes from simply spending time with characters until their presence becomes familiar.
Given the choice, I will happily run Trust dungeons with my bros: Estinien, Thancred and Urianger. There isn't necessarily some profound emotional revelation occurring every time. Sometimes it's simply, right then, lads, dungeon.
The twins, Alphinaud and Alisaie, have long since entered must protecc territory. I will be accepting no arguments on the matter. Y'shtola, Tataru and Krile are some of the smartest people you'll meet in Eorzea. I love watching exceptionally competent fictional women work while everyone else catches up.
I don't care about all of these characters in exactly the same way, and that's part of what makes the relationships convincing. Some inspire protectiveness, while others inspire admiration or companionship. One apparently requires me to spend several years unsuccessfully trying to explain what he did to me. Emet.
Real friendships aren't built exclusively from weddings, funerals, declarations and dramatic sacrifices either. Most of the relationship happens in all the ordinary time between those things. Long RPGs, particularly MMOs, give fictional relationships room for that ordinary time too.
Not every player becomes attached in the same way
My relationship with my Warrior of Light isn't universal. Someone else may spend just as many years with a character who remains completely separate from them. Another player might create an idealised version of themselves or deliberately make someone completely unlike them because that's where the fun is.
Some players may not be especially attached to their avatar at all and instead become hopelessly invested in their companions. RPGs give us several different routes into the same problem. Somehow, a thing that began as a character model and a set of game mechanics ends up mattering to us.
Time has a lot to do with it. A character starts as a name, some sliders and perhaps a backstory you wrote at an hour when respectable people were asleep. Then you make decisions through them, meet people, win and lose things, make mistakes, take screenshots and spend entirely too long finding clothes that look right.
Maybe you draw them or write about them. They might stay inside one save file, or nine years later they might still be the face you expect to see every time you enter a world you've visited thousands of times.
At some point, “just pixels” stops being a particularly useful description.
Of course I know they're not real
Discussions about attachment to fictional characters sometimes get unnecessarily defensive. Of course I know Eorzea isn't real, and I know my Warrior of Light is data stored on a server. My sweet summer asshole, that was never the point.
I've spent nine years making decisions, building friendships and creating memories through that character. The stories affected me, and the friendships with other players mattered to me. What I've chosen to do in that world has been part of how I've spent nearly a decade of my actual life.
If FFXIV disappeared tomorrow, I'd be losing nine years of emotional investment. I'd also lose the form I've inhabited in a place that's been part of my life for nearly a decade. Some of my real-life friendships haven't even lasted that long.
And I think that's ultimately why RPG players can become so attached to their characters. Fictional characters don't have to be real people for our history with them to matter.