Stellar Jockeys, the development studio behind the mech simulator Brigador, recently released its sequel Brigador Killers into early access. In a recent interview, lead developers Hugh and Jack Monahan detailed their design philosophy, explaining why they eschew scripted narrative moralizing in favor of systemic player choice.
Mechanics Over Moralizing
The Monahan brothers expressed a preference for the implicit storytelling found in 1990s PC classics over modern scripted morality scenes. Jack Monahan noted that games like the original X-COM effectively conveyed thematic weight through core loops—such as selling alien corpses to balance budget spreadsheets—without relying on cutscenes to lecture the player about ethics. The developers argued that forcing players down a fixed path only to scold them through narrative beats feels hypocritical and less engaging than letting natural mechanical consequences unfold.
Player Action Drives Emergent Ethics
Illustrating how interactive systems trigger personal reflections, Hugh Monahan highlighted titles such as Crusader: No Remorse, Syndicate, and Spec Ops: The Line. In those games, tension arises naturally when players face unprompted choices, such as handling panicking civilians or reacting to escalating conflicts without clear instructions. When design mechanics allow multiple responses without explicit prompts, player regret or realization becomes a direct consequence of their own decisions rather than a scripted plot point.
Designing Unscripted Choice in Brigador Killers
Stellar Jockeys integrated these principles directly into their titles by avoiding explicit morality meters. In the original Brigador, for instance, the game awarded a flat cash bonus for killing civilians without offering commentary or judging the player, leading some users to initially mistake the behavior for a bug. Brigador Killers carries forward this laconic, system-driven approach, allowing players to navigate tactical scenarios and discover ethical ambiguity entirely through their own actions during early access.
AI-generated editorial illustration; not a documentary photograph.
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