At first glance, the video game industry seems to be about as far removed from the American political situation as it is possible to be, although the presence of fantastical narratives and efforts to level up to ever more absolute power do suggest that there may be some crossover. Nevertheless, the debut of a new blockbuster title suggests something revealing about the nature of our unhealthy polity: that its manifest dysfunction might well proceed from the widespread, pervasive cynicism which now drives almost every aspect of our culture.

The video game industry has recently celebrated one of its veritable consumer events: the release of a new numbered entry in the Final Fantasy franchise—in this case, the sixteenth title in that august chain of roman numerals. In the past, the advent of a new Final Fantasy game would have been the occasion for months of unqualified excitement and unstinting enthusiasm. Now, however, the chorus of congratulation is complicated by critique, even as the YouTube influencers paid to drum up support insist that the new title is “the best Final Fantasy game ever.” Even in advance of the game’s release, a freely-available demo, presenting the first two hours of the title, was leading more than a few players to other conclusions.

The reasons for dissatisfaction have their roots in the attitude that the developer, SquareEnix, has towards its consumer audience. Historically, Final Fantasy games have been characterised as “JRPGs”—Japanese Role-Playing Games—typified most significantly by menu-driven combat systems of some complexity, and supplemented by storylines that pit the player’s party of anime-style characters against world-ending threats such as gods, aliens, malevolent supercomputers, and international power companies.

Outside of Japan, the genre has a smaller share of the sales market. Consequently, over the past few entries in the Final Fantasy series, SquareEnix has distanced itself from JRPG gameplay in a deliberate attempt to broaden the audience of its core franchise. After all, titles aimed primarily at North American audiences, like Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto, command sales in the tens or even hundreds of millions of units—the kinds of numbers that SquareEnix can only imagine in their most avaricious dreams. It is no surprise, then, that the advocates of SquareEnix’s approach point to projected profits, and the promises of a “broader audience,” as if they are irrefutable considerations.

These sorts of corporate efforts are, by now, familiar to audiences worldwide. The damage done to the Star Wars and Lord of the Rings franchises by their current caretakers is almost taken as read, reviews and viewing figures notwithstanding. Indeed, there is a growing sense that the owners of cultural capital have a duty to do more than chase after ever-larger profits—that they have a duty of care to the original material, and should be limited in their ability to perpetrate indignities and malefactions upon beloved cultural artefacts, whether in the form of sensitivity readers, incongruous diversity casting, or the insertion of blatant activism that conforms to the new owners’ political agendas. Increasingly, audiences are beginning to come around to that line of thinking—or perhaps they are simply tired of seeing their favourite characters and worlds treated to the clumsy ministrations of corporate greed: by now, the novelty has gone.

At the same time, there is plenty of room for franchise innovation. The Pokémon series sells tens of millions of copies with each release, developing each game’s systems and mechanics in each generation; but, it does so without ever foregoing the essential gameplay qualities that its vast audience has come to expect. Likewise, huge successes such as Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto build on previous releases instead of abandoning the design philosophies that have made them so successful. Thus, each new game in these highly-successful franchises feels like a natural, iterative evolution that is faithful to the history of the series. The positive reception each title receives encourages uptake from new players.

That is not what has happened with Final Fantasy XVI, which slavishly reproduces story elements from Game of Thrones and has its action gameplay taken directly from Devil May Cry (in fact, the combat planner for Final Fantasy XVI, Ryota Suzuki, was a gameplay designer for Devil May Cry 5). But Game of Thrones and Devil May Cry are very popular, and SquareEnix has for some years been engaged in chasing after the audiences of other popular franchises, leading to a string of costly failures, including Final Fantasy VII: The First Soldier, Chocobo Racing GP, and Babylon’s Fall to name a few. Yet the decision to abandon Final Fantasy’s JRPG fundamentals and chase after a new audience is especially aggravating. Although Dragon Quest has been the quintessential JRPG in Japan, it is Final Fantasy that has occupied that position in the West. The 1990 North American release of Final Fantasy created a growing interest in the genre, which went truly mainstream following the 1997 release of Final Fantasy VII—a game perennially voted one of the greatest ever made.

What is happening with Final Fantasy XVI is happening in wider culture, but also within the context of American politics, whether downstream or upstream from culture (but certainly on the same watercourse). The latest entry in the Final Fantasy series seems to have abandoned its roots, casting off its extant audience in favour of a putatively larger one which, SquareEnix confidently insists, is just over the horizon. Similarly, Republicans and Democrats alike have abandoned the policies popular with their historical voting bases in favour of policies abhorrent to most of their supporters. These are not moves to the centre: in fact, the policies adopted by the parties seem extreme, and only further polarise the already fraught political situation. For example, the campaign by some Democrats to “defund the police” is one which is repugnant to the vast numbers of Democrat voters, particularly those within inner cities and marginalised communities, who are most likely to feel the deleterious effects of any reduction in law enforcement. Yet those same voters make up the majority of the population in Democrat-voting strongholds. Faced with this situation, the decision to champion such noisome policies seems perplexing, until it is situated within the larger context of the new cynicism.

The new cynicism assumes that, once an audience commits to a media franchise, celebrity cause, political party, or any such thing to which they can lend their support, then that audience can be trusted to remain loyal even should the object of their support betray them, however treacherously and cravenly. In this respect, the new cynicism relies upon an assumption about human nature: that people will not want to back down from a commitment to some cause and will undertake all manner of rationalisation to defend their support, even should it become clear that they have been unwise, or even foolish, in extending that support in the first place. In some ways, the new cynicism looks like chauvinism, the sunk cost fallacy, or the forming of a new identity around a cause; it is both pervasive and powerful.

Politicians are recognising and drawing upon the new cynicism. At a campaign rally in Iowa on January 23, 2016, then-candidate Donald Trump explained the faithfulness of his supporters when he said, “I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters;” it explains his conduct regarding the January 6 riot at the United States Capitol; and his claim that pro-life policies were the cause of 2022 mid-term election failures. In both cases, Trump understood that his behaviour would not cost him the votes of his supporters because nothing could cost him the votes of his supporters.

Similarly, the same realisation underpins the era of no-accountability in which government operates. Consequently, a highly-politicised Department of Justice is able to intimidate ideological foes of the current administration, like devout Catholics and pro-life activists, whilst playing soft and loose with pro-choice terrorists who set fire to churches and businesses. The shambolic withdrawal from Afghanistan, for which no one was ever held to account, figures not a jot at the ballot box. So far are we from “The Buck Stops Here” that we may wonder if there is still even a buck at all.

The new cynicism rests upon certain assumptions about human nature in general: about our desire to lie to ourselves rather than admit that we have made a mistake in our loyalties; about our too-ready willingness to fashion our identities around transient causes and cultural objects; about our inability to climb down once we have invested too much or said too much; and about our willingness to carry on along the wrong path rather than undertake the necessary effort to chart a better course. None of these assumptions need to be true—we can resist them, with some effort, to our great benefit. But the unhappy reality is that the new cynicism may well prevail should it continue accurately to describe the majority of the populace.

The remedy—casting off unworthy loyalties, rejecting treacherous politicians, and voting for individuals rather than parties—will necessarily involve a climb-down now and again, along with the occasional frank admission of error. But there, culture can be a crutch just as it has been a canary in the coal mine with Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and even Final Fantasy. After all, it is a trivial thing to reject the bastardisation of a beloved franchise—it costs less than nothing, after all.

If we can learn, as I have done, to pass up for the first time the latest Final Fantasy title, then it might be possible to resist the other impositions of the new cynicism, and so hope to heal in some little part the cynicism which wounds our fractious nation. Instead, we can pursue a culture that treats its readers, viewers, and players with respect and does not assume their unqualified support; and, we can demand of our politicians a commitment to their constituents under the same terms. The less cynical society that results will be far more inspiring of hope, and more open to stories and policies that respect, and pursue, the Good.