DRIVERPUNK FICTION COULD BECOME A THING

 

One of the games that changed gaming and the industry around it as a whole is undoubtedly Driver. Its premise is simple. The player is a detective going undercover in order to solve a case involving dangerous criminals. The player is tasked with posing as a wheelman in order to get closer to the suspects and eventually bring justice. This is the barebones premise without the name of the main protagonist, the name of the antagonist or antagonists and the locations the games take place in. But what this premise reminds one about is the 70s.

It's the 25th anniversary of Driver so this article is not only a loveletter to the game that had lots to give to the open world videogames and gaming as a whole, but also it's some thoughts about how the new driver videogame could be like, or hopefully inspire people on creating a new punk fiction subgenre.

Taking place in a parking lot, the first level of the very first videogame of the series, acting also as the tutorial (which if someone makes a little research online will immediately notice is truly hard or at least was for players back then), was actually a love letter to the 1978 film "The Driver" which inspired the creator of the series, Martin Edmonson, to create the basic premise for the game. But the rest of the game and the series up until Driver 3 (or Driv3r) is no different, paying tribute to many 70s and early 80s action movies with police officers or vigilantes bringing justice in Miami, San Fransisco, New York or other iconic cities that were popular for filming such movies at that time.

This article aims to suggest a new subgenre in Punk Fiction. I love Millenniumpunk and I love having set the pillars for something that greatly interprets and expresses how I viewed that era and how I can compare it to the years prior the 90s and early 2000s and those afterwards. So this article, along with a few others regarding suggested genres will aim in giving ideas to anyone who wants to create a new subgenre based on these suggestions.

70s. What made them distinct was the over the top action movies with action heroes that were still very human – looking (compared to the 80s action heroes), but still looked strong and motivated an had to rely on their skills and strengths, bell bottom pants, Burt Reynolds, the still fresh memories of the 1969's Woodstock Festival, the introduction of metal as an early concept through Black Sabbath (formed in 1968), Iron Maiden (1975) and Deep Purple (1968), human rights movements bursting around the world, an excessive font for flowers and vibrant colors on clothes, horror films actually becoming more than just movies, leaving classic hits that remain to this day, iconic and innovative cars and Funk music.

The three original Driver games create that exact atmosphere. A universe stuck into that era with 70s cars, funk music mixed with rock beats during police chases, people throwing 70s slang lines, 70s architecture and a New York that remains blocky and full of narrow alleyways and trashcans. Although Driver – Parallel Lines has its own charm, it is not a game that's stuck in an era, as the player experiences a timeline with the protagonist living through the late 70s with everything being era accurate and specific and then it moves over to the 2000s, again with everything following the era it covers. The first three games, however, seem to "think" in a different way. And while all Driver games tried to bring some innovation, the first three seem to be aiming for their very own Punk Fiction universe set in a timeline forever stuck in the 70s with everything looking just as it would in a 70s film, even if you can clearly see the characters own the latest (for that time) Nokia phone and Nokia advertisements all over Constantinople in Driv3r.

There are movies that do the same. I'm sure of it. I'm definitely sure I've seen some of them, but can't really remember their title. Maybe the Watchmen is an example, taking place in the late 70s to early 80s, showing a world that's also stuck in the 70s but uses very modern (for the time) technology with Doctor Manhattan being partially responsible for that slight change. The latest Batman, as well as Tim Burton's Batman Films also seem to be set in a universe that's stuck somewhere in the 50s to 70s. Also, oddly enough, Mickey Mystery (the comic books and not the novels) have that flare of a universe stuck in the 70s and it's even described in the plot summary/introduction, explaining that Anderville (or Dark City as it's mentioned in some of the translations) is a city that looks frozen in time with everything looking like it's back from the 50s but with people owning new technology.

GTA III would have fit that category due to its gritty atmosphere, should it have not had modern cars. Sure it's set in the early 2000s and Fido/Claude himself doesn’t seem to own a mobile phone but instead uses a beeper, which is a late 70s and early 80s trope mostly, but that alone doesn't make the entire game fit in that category sadly (and indeed sadly because it's my favorite GTA title as it managed to capture a uniqueness like no other of the other titles could, being a combination of Mickey Mystery, Silent Hill, late 90s to early 2000s cartoons and GTA itself without looking odd).

But there are three more titles that manage to fit the category perfectly (one of them also being a Millenniumpunk Universe favorite due to its ties with the "Dreamcast Aesthetics" that Killer 7 manages to capture with its artistic style). Killer 7 looks modern but still feels like it's set in a 70s universe. So is Streets of Sim City (if not the first Sim City games until Sim City 4 as a whole) and last but not least, Interstate 76.

As one might understand, naming such Punk Fiction universe is hard. Funk Punk would be hard to pronounce maybe, despite Funk being a staple for that era. Funky Punk sounds better and is a suggested name, although the universe that manages to truly pull this off and create a modern – still stuck in the 70s – universe experience is the first 3 Driver games. Driver Punk sounds a bit silly, but it's suggested for a variety of reasons, including the one just mentioned.

Many of the 70s movies include heavy car action scenes, hence driving, so it's not just about Driver the videogame but about driving as a whole during that era. Second, it's the fact that police and vigilante movies were very popular in the 70s, hence Driver features such a premise. Lastly, Driverpunk as one word does not sound like a music genre (as Funkypunk for instance would) so it can have literature, films, games, comics and more under its umbrella.

How would such a universe be like? Of course we would have to accept that almost everything would look like back in the day. Maybe even the ideologies. There would be some form of progression (Driver and Mickey Mystery managed to do that by implying that only the city and the cars, trains and anything making the city as an organism remain like a ghost of the past, but the rest is modern, like the soul of a human), but that progression would only be used as a philosophical and esoteric reference to us. To be more precise, such a universe would not likely be trying to show a post apocalyptic universe or a dystopian one, but rather an old body (a city or a world) that has grown to accept and form new ideas and embrace the present, moving forward by choosing what to accept and what not in order to remain authentic (the modern technologies shown in both Driver and computers or phones shown in both Driver and Mickey Mystery).

Now that the basic premise is done with, the setting would probably be either highly optimistic (with a more hippy – ish approach) or gritty (like one of Charles Bronson's Deathwish movies) or it could actually be both. People would never move to music genres like Trap, but instead they would forever be stuck in a loop of Hard Rock, Metal, Funk, Hip Hop and Disco Pop, which would not be bad at all, as these music genres left their mark in history and most of them have managed to stay alive to this day with most of the songs belonging to them, still being loved by many. Gaming consoles would probably not exist or would look archaic with kids playing on an Atari. Emails (the way we know them today), Social Media and Media Platforms would probably not exist or if they were to be implemented in such universe they would be in a form that would look both alien and familiar to us at the same time (maybe an Atari console with a VHS tape reader accessory that would be able to read tapes and send them through an Email Discussion through commands imputed by another accessory being a keyboard. To access the internet (the way it was back in the 70s – historically impossible if we consider the internet back then was mostly if not only for military and scientific use) they would have to insert a certain cassette in their Atari device. This complicated method sounds like a convincing way to make people being able to have modern technologies in the 70s.

Such universe would show protagonists that might look intimidating or vigilant, but wouldn't be relied on prosthetic parts like in Cyberpunk Fiction or steroids that would make them look like an 80s action hero. Instead, they would look more down to earth, hairy and probably with a moustache, even looking a bit older than any action hero would look like in a Cyberpunk Fiction story. But this is where maturity of the soul comes in. The poetic, rhetoric and philosophical maturity of the soul with cities being stuck in the 70s but trying to move on to modern times without losing their identity in time, but also with characters that look like a part of the cities they live in. Old, but still young in their souls. Still ready to adapt to situations but still not willing to give up what makes them – them.

This in short is a suggestion of a universe set in the 70s and more importantly set in a universe stuck in that time. Driverpunk would look amazing and any movie or other media portraying such a setting would definitely be a spectacle to watch.