The Rise of Urban Fantasy

An interesting fact of game design is the sudden rise of prominence in
Urban Fantasy games. Not only in video-games, but in other forms of
media too. The Secret World is but one example from the
world of game design, but books such as the Dresden Files, and shows
such as Sanctuary both borrow heavily from the rise of Urban Fantasy.
I find it interesting and wonder how, and why, we are so interested in
such things.


Urban fantasy is the idea of the modern world with magic applied.
Light Urban Fantasy is usually the ground of such books as Tinker, the
world of magic and the modern world are peacefully linked together,
either they have always been so or it is a recent event, but the
creatures of the magical world are no more inclined to evil than
humans are, and just want to get along like fellow sapient beings.
Dark Urban Fantasy takes the other view, that there are hideous
predators stalking the night and seeking our dooms. H.P. Lovecraft
pioneered the earliest form of Dark Urban Fantasy, and Lovecraftian
Horror has long been embraced by the genre. Interestingly, Dark Urban
Fantasy is the primary form of Urban Fantasy, the World of Darkness
from Whitewolf is the most famous example, but The Secret World, the
MMO from Funcom is clocking in at a close second by now. There is
hardly a geek alive who has not heard of the Dresden Files, which fits
into a similar category.


I find it interesting that the rise of games, and the rise in
popularity of Urban Fantasy has risen almost in union. While Urban
Fantasy can find it's roots in Lovecraft's works, which itself grew
out of a reconstruction of gothic horror, it most certainly gained a
new level of popularity with the new millennium, especially with the
explosion of the internet in the early to mid '00s. I believe, on some
level, it is a natural reaction to the sudden availability of
information thrown at people. Previously, the world was a less dark
place, the good stood out because it was so easy to ignore the bad,
and further, humans tend to talk about bad stuff more than good stuff,
as if trying to warn others of our misfortune so they might avoid it.
The world has become a darker place by all appearances, and worse, it
seems as if the average human is losing control over their own lives.
In such circumstances, with an explosion of new views, new thoughts,
new modes of thinking even brought about by the internet and
interactivity revolutions, we have revived the old horrors of our
nightmares and given them form in our modern day world.


Most interestingly, Dark Urban Fantasy has taken this, and combined it
with the conspiracy theories, cabals, and secret organizations that
were once the purview of espionage fiction such as James Bond. Maybe
as a method of rationalization for how magic can stay hidden from the
normal world, and possibly also linking into the ideas that there are
unseen hands controlling our lives. Either way, Dark Urban Fantasy is
a world of secrets, horrors, magic, predators, and a universe that
ultimately does not care whether humanity lives or dies.


Magic and the unknown has always fascinated us, and games especially
have exploited this in their exploration factor, easter eggs and such,
is it little wonder that the mystery of cabals, conspiracies, and
similar things have wormed their way into recent games. Combined with
the fact that Urban Fantasy as a whole is a thoroughly postmodern
genre, a reconstruction of old ideas of fantasy to suit the modern
world, it is little wonder that it connects with us as far more
"realistic" fantasy than traditional Fantasy. Combine this yet again
with the fact that the games industry has played the Tolkien card over
and over again in almost every roleplaying game made for interactive
gaming systems, combine this once more with the fact that almost every
game now contains some rpg elements, and it quickly becomes apparent
why we are steadily seeing an increase in the Urban Fantasy game,
especially the Dark Urban Fantasy. We see these because just as Urban
Fantasy is a reconstruction of traditional Fantasy, the Urban Fantasy
game is a reconstruction of the Fantasy game.


The Secret World is the best example of this. It does away with
classes, now there are only skills. It does away with "faction
specific parties", now you can side with members of the opposite
faction to go adventuring with. It does away with traditional crafting
systems in MMOs, now everyone can craft and it uses a Minecraft-esque
crafting grid rather than a progress bar and materials list. Just as
Urban Fantasy literature deconstructs and reconstructs traditional
Fantasy literature, The Secret World is an Urban Fantasy
deconstruction and reconstruction of traditional Fantasy MMO tropes.