The Myth and Mystery of JETT: The Far Shore
Don Everhart, Contributing Editor
JETT: The Far Shore opens with ritual. Enclosed in a small, dark space, players see, from within a first-person perspective, that their character is being sent off for some kind of special task. There are a few pages with inscriptions and drawings on a table, clearly meaningful to those in the scene, if not the player. Leaving the tent, they are serenaded in the direction of their ship. They’re embarking on a sacred voyage. From the start, the mystery of the game is immediately wrapped in the mystery of JETT’s culture. While players presumably signed up for a tale of space exploration when they purchased their ticket, I wonder how many have anticipated Superbrothers’ latest attempt at videogame mythopoesis.
That’s a word that requires some explanation, but I think it’s appropriate for the ambition of JETT’s designers. Their previous game, 2011’s Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery, was very overt in its textual qualities. It was literally playful with the ideas and structures of myth, going as far as to use a character called “The Archetype” within its framing device. JETT’s approach to deploying the mythic to deepen its story is only slightly less direct. The narrator is less present, the focus directed insteads towards character and dialog. The result is less the telling of an epic and more a consideration of how explorers understand and use myth to guide them through unknown perils.
In JETT, players assume the role of Mei, a pilot of the titular rocketcraft and, we are told, an “anchorite.” It’s easy to understand Mei as a pilot, as most of the active gameplay involves guiding a craft that glides over the surface of a planet, meeting the objectives of the scouting team of which Mei is part. It takes longer for the meaning of “anchorite” to unfold, and its meaning is largely unfolded through interaction with the rest of the team and the world.
Beyond the opening act, Mei and the other scouts are the first to land on a faraway planet. The planet is known and unknown to them at the same time. Somewhere in the history of their culture, something like a religion was written and interpreted from the visions of a mystic named Tsosi. He discovered a resonance, a frequency from the stars, that gave him insights into a lush world with a giant, pyramidal transmitter, all under the radiant glow of a nearby planet. Once Mei is skimming through turbulent waves on that world’s surface, everyone involved starts to feel the effects of its closest celestial neighbor. That giant, fluorescing sphere in the heavens periodically disrupts electronics, making communication between the team unintelligible. It decimates the ship’s electric shielding, encouraging players to seek shady paths through gullies and canyons and to find shelter. It throws deep, thrumming sounds through players’ speakers and streaks of pink light across the screen. And it has something to do with whatever is inside of the giant mountain on the planet’s surface.
The scouting team has their own terms for all of these landmarks and for the various megafauna they encounter. All of these features of the world, from its living monuments to its plants and air, are interpreted through Tsosi’s words. But they don’t behave exactly as expected, and there are many gaps in scripture that are unaccounted for. Members of the scouting team bring their own perspectives regarding the value of the myth: all believe in it to some extent, because it is to some extent observable. The transmission from the planet was detectable at a distance and is even clearer up close. But while some members would prefer to leave the myth there, others interpret every event on their scouting mission through it. It’s rare to have plot movement without an accompanying liturgy from one or two characters.
Few are more regular about such ritual than Mei’s co-pilot, Isao. I’m of two minds regarding his presence in the game. In terms of gameplay, he is unfortunately placed in the role of the insistent advisor. From the very start, as Mei pilots their Jett through the proving grounds of their homeworld, he issues friendly directives. But the structures of the game render these compulsory, pausing the action until the player rotates the camera to spot a destination or, at its worst, rewinding to a previous moment until they properly execute a technique. This was immediately frustrating, perhaps even more so because of its dissonance with the tone of dialog and the feeling of free-flowing travel and exploration that the game otherwise seems to invite.
Isao is more interesting as a character than he is as the player’s minder. As the game progresses, he and the other scouts unfold a dynamic in front of the largely silent Mei that makes space for the complexity of myth and its interpretation. The way the game treats myth and science as deeply interconnected feels almost like an alternate history, one where the approach of natural philosophy continues to dominate instead of splitting and professionalizing into science and religion. Isao is deeply invested in Tsosi’s scripture while also being mission-focused. While some of the other scouts are clearly just as devoted as Isao (to the point where a large portrait of the elder Tsosi, and his bushy beard, is given precious wall space within ground control), others are reluctant to treat his work as prophecy. They are less certain that they know how the story will go, less sure that the world to which they’ve traveled is already interpreted and known to them.
Meanwhile, there is the player, who is thrown into the role of Mei. I assume that leaving her without a speaking voice of her own (unless one counts selecting between minimal dialog prompts as “speaking”) is meant as it usually is within videogames, that is, as a means for the player to insert themselves into the plot. That doesn’t quite work with a setting that is this rich (does it ever?), especially when the other characters have expectations of who Mei is, where she comes from, and how she understands their mission. The references to Mei being an “anchorite” are the strongest example of the assumptions that the other characters have about her, but all the player knows about that role is what appears on screen. From the start, we know that Mei is bound up in ritual, in some form of sacred bonding, and that she has a different kind of status and relation to Tsosi and his myths than others. The exact nature of that relation seems tightly bound to the game’s plot. And while I appreciate Superbrothers' reluctance for exposition, in this case another dash of it could have made some characters and relationships easier to understand. Maybe that could have been addressed if Mei could speak for herself.
Even so, I can appreciate how Superbrothers wants to tell a story about what happens when a guiding myth connects with the present. JETT’s detailed approach to science fiction is a good fit for that, and I appreciate how much time is spent on airlocks, protective suits, and the hazards of exploring a new world. The minutes spent moving in and out of ground control to the surface of the planet and into Mei’s Jett are evocative. These details allow for humanity in a story with a grand, cosmic scope. Myth, as usual, is the middleman, the interpretive layer between the two. What’s refreshing is that it doesn’t operate without friction in JETT: amidst the challenges of the environment and the mission, plenty hinges on mystery and interpretation.
