This Is What a "Second-Person" Video Game Would Look Like

Most 3D, character-driven video games

can be pretty easily placed
into one of two categories:

either first person or third person.

In a first-person game,
you see the game world

through the actual eyes
of the player character

as though you were that character,

and in a third-person game,
you see the player character

from the outside - often
from behind their back

or from a fixed isometric perspective.

But the existence of
these two perspectives

begs a question:

if this is what a
first-person game looks like,

and this is what a third-person
video game looks like...

what exactly would
second-person look like?

Now, I'm not the first
person to wonder about this -

the question of whether or not

a second-person shooter
could actually exist

is one that has plagued
video game message boards

just about as long as
the Internet has existed.

It's also served as the premise

for some pretty good comedy
sketches over the years,

like this one from Mega64:

- [Announcer] Introducing the world's

first second-person shooter.

(video game music)

(rock music)
- No no no no!

- And this one from The Onion.

- To enter second-person shooter mode,

you just simply adjust
the narrative slider

from first to second.

- You are walking down a long corridor.

Suddenly, a Nazi leaps out
from around the doorway

and unleashes a hail of machine
gun fire in your direction.

- But to help us actually figure out

what a second-person game would really be,

I think it would be helpful
to look at this grammatically.

In written language, the term "first person"

denotes any writing
where the point of view

uses phrases like "I" or m"y"

to tell the story from the
perspective of the protagonist.

Third-person writing, on the other hand,

uses third-person pronouns -

for example, "he went this way,"
"she went that way," et cetera -

to talk about characters
from an outside perspective.

Now, second-person writing does exist,

but it's kind of a weird one -

in second person, the
primary pronoun used is "you."

"You do this," "you go there," et cetera.

The second person is
actually a lot less common

in narrative writing,

and it's actually something
you're more likely to encounter

in, say, a list of instructions

or a choose-your-own-adventure book.

Now, the analogous video
game camera perspectives

for first and third-person
writing are obvious -

but what about for second-person?

We know what an "I" game looks like

and we know what a "he" game looks like,

but what about a "you" game?

Strangely enough, I actually
found the answer to this

before I even came up with the question,

and, believe it or not, it
came to me courtesy of a game

you may have heard me
talk about once before -

and that game is Driver: San Francisco.

See, for all the interesting missions

in Driver: San Francisco -
and there are plenty of them -

there's one mission in particular

that I swear to God I
think about all the time.

The mission in question
is called "The Target"

and it's the final mission
of chapter six of the game.

In the game, you play as
a cop named John Tanner

who, for reasons I won't get into here,

basically has a superpower that allows you

to take over the bodies
of any other driver,

and has begun using that superpower

to foil a possible terror plot

from a gangster named Jericho.

Over the course of the game Tanner decides

that the best way to
unravel Jericho's plans

is to do it from the inside,

and in order to do that,
Tanner takes over the body

of a low-level henchman named Ordell

and uses his driving skills

to help move Ordell up the ranks.

The final mission in this story arc

sees you inhabiting
Ordell's body one last time

to complete a major assignment
from his boss Leila,

who is this international assassin

and Jericho's second-in-command.

Tanner's plan?

Warp into Ordell's body and,
without arousing suspicion,

drive Leila and Ordell
directly into police custody.

Now, the mission begins as normal

with Tanner and his partner Jones

driving their iconic
orange Dodge Challenger,

and soon enough, you
warp into Ordell's body

with Leila in the passenger seat

where she gives you some
clarity on the mission.

(car engine roaring)

- [Leila] Ordell, I need
nothing but your best today.

- [Tanner] What's going down?

- [Leila] Jericho's got
a problem he wants fixed.

Get me to the target and I'll fix it.

- So you drive to the destination

she's given you, closing
in on your target,

and as you get close, this happens:

(car engine roaring)

- Slow down.

We should acquire the target any time now.

(car engine roaring)
(tires screeching)

The yellow Dodge, up ahead.

Stay close but don't be obvious.

- ...that's my car.

- What?

That's the cop that's
been getting in our way.

- Do we follow him to the target?

- ...he IS the target.

- [Narrator] It's you.

You've been assigned to kill... you.

(music)

Now, after that cutscene ends,

you are back in Ordell's
body in the first person

with Leila sitting to your right.

But then... you press the
throttle to accelerate,

and the car in front of you moves.

You steer to the left and to the right...

and the car in front of you moves

to the left and then to the right.

And then, quickly, it sinks in
that the car you're controlling

is actually the car you're following.

Your perspective as the
player is entirely separate

from what you're
controlling as the player.

In other words, you're pursuing... you.

Now, as you can see, the
car that you're sitting in

is moving, too - but, crucially,

you're not the one who's
controlling that car.

The car you're sitting in
is moving automatically,

seemingly operated by
an AI-controlled driver

who's tailing the car
you're actually controlling.

It's basically like a chase
mission in any other video game

just like you've seen
countless other times -

except for this time,
it's flipped on its head.

This time, you're the one being followed,

while simultaneously seeing it all unfold

from the perspective of the
car doing the following.

And while it's hard for me to guess

how well this comes across on video,

all these elements
combine to make something

that is very, very odd to play.

There's something
shocking and disorienting

about seeing a first-person
perspective on your screen

but also not controlling that perspective

while remotely operating
the car that you're tailing.

It's the closest a video
game has ever gotten

to feeling like a true
out-of-body experience,

and it's an experience
that has stuck with me

ever since I first played
this game back in 2011.

Now, when I first played
Driver: San Francisco

eight years ago,

I kinda just played
through this mission once,

start to finish, marveling
at the unique perspective

that this mission granted you,

but then moving on to
the rest of the game.

But I've always felt like if
I ever came back to this game,

I'd wanna pick this mission apart

and see what makes it tick,

and that's part of what
I hope to accomplish

with this video.

See, as cool as this mission
is, it's also pretty linear.

The whole thing takes
place with you driving down

this completely locked-down race course

with no exits or detours -

pretty much just a
straight shot to the exit.

I've always assumed that
the developer Reflections

designed this mission this way

due to the technological limitations

of this weird second-person camera

that they built just for this mission.

Perhaps there was no way
for them to get this camera

to behave properly in
the actual open world

with all the various streets, elevations,

and alleyways you could dip into -

not to mention the other street traffic.

And on top of that,
they built this mission

with a pretty strict countdown timer,

forcing you to hit the
checkpoints in rapid succession -

something that I've always
assumed was placed there

to keep you from ever
veering too far off the path

and breaking the game somehow.

Still, I've always wondered about

the actual limitations of this mission,

and I knew that this time
around I wanted to test out

whether or not there
was any way to escape -

so before finishing the mission, I paused,

started it over, and then this time,

instead of starting the race as intended,

I swung the car into a 180,

driving the car backwards
in the wrong direction.

Now, when I do this, the AI driver

immediately begins panicking,

rapidly spinning the steering wheel

trying desperately to
keep my car visible in frame,

and then eventually, it
turns around 180 degrees

to reveal what looks like
the entire open world

of Driver: San Francisco -

seemingly 100% accessible to the player.

Now I drove away from the
racetrack and began exploring,

and I kept bracing myself to
hit some kind of invisible wall

or failure state for going off course,

but it never happened.
It all actually worked.

I merged into traffic

and the second-person camera followed me,

immaculately bobbing and weaving

through the other cars on the road.

It was around this time that
I noticed...

there was no timer.

It turns out that Reflections

had generously designed this mission,

intentionally or unintentionally,

so that the mission countdown timer

doesn't actually begin until
you reach the first checkpoint -

meaning that if you never
hit that first checkpoint,

you can drive around forever.

(car engine roaring)

(car passing on right honks)

This led to what I can only describe

as a transcendent video game experience.

It felt like I was seeing something

that I was never meant to see.

This ability to explore the
city as much as I wanted to

all from this wholly unique,

extremely surreal second-person viewpoint:

it felt like a magical experience

and one that almost nobody else

has experienced for themselves.

Now, revisiting this mission

and managing to escape the confines

laid down by the developers
all those years ago,

I really wanted to try and
push this thing to its limits.

I couldn't resit trying
to break things a little:

I drove the car off ramps, into
upcoming traffic, all of it.

But surprisingly, it
held together perfectly.

That is, until I tried one specific thing.

See, I haven't talked about it before,

but this mission actually
does have a failure condition.

In the lower-right corner of the screen

there's a health meter,

and it represents the
health of Tanner's car:

the car you're chasing / driving.

But if you get into
one too many collisions

while driving this car
in the second person,

you can actually run out of health,

causing Tanner to die and
the mission to end in a loss.

This is actually pretty hard to achieve

on the default mission path they laid out,

but driving into
oncoming lanes of traffic

and ramping off car transporters

had taken its toll on my vehicle

and I only had a small
sliver of health left.

Wanting to explore this
mission as long as possible,

I gingerly pulled Tanner's
car into a narrow alleyway

and then decided to try out the one thing

I hadn't attempted yet:

I turned around and drove
the car,

in the second person,

directly at myself.

(music)

This put the AI driver
in a weird position.

It now had to drive backwards
just to keep me in the frame,

and it was also narrowly sandwiched

between the two walls of the alley,

giving it almost no room to maneuver.

I kept driving towards myself,

putting on the pressure,
closer and closer, and then...

(car engine roaring)

(car screeching)

(cars crashing)

- [Leila] Nice work.

- It broke.

All at once, the second-person
vehicle shoots into a wall,

clips through it,

and then launches hundreds
of feet into the air.

Briefly, one frame at a time,

we can get glimpses of
the chaos that unfolded:

we see the car inside the wall,

then we see the car's
front console flipped over;

we see what appears to be the ocean floor

and then the pavement
as seen from underneath;

we see rooftops, the driver's arm,

the sky, trees, abstract geometry -

and then the city from above,

flooded with unloaded geometry.

After that, we see the car
spinning and spinning in mid air,

giving us glimpses of
San Francisco from above,

before finally getting so high

that nothing can be
seen but endless ocean.

And then,

black.

(music)

Suddenly, all at once, the
car snaps back to earth.

The health meter for Tanner's
vehicle turns blindingly white

and then the second-person viewpoint

fills with an orange-yellow
hue: Tanner's car.

Quickly it becomes clear
that the second-person car

has somehow spawned inside
of Tanner's vehicle,

dealing infinite damage to the car.

(cars crashing)

A deafening crash sound can be heard

and shattered glass flies everywhere,

and then, for a brief moment,
right before the mission ends,

the camera inexplicably
shifts into Tanner's car

where the car is balanced on its nose,

its windshield shattered,

thrust impossibly through another vehicle.

And then, horrifically, the camera clips

through the back of
Tanner's partner's head

and shows us the backside
of his eyeballs and tongue:

a truly terrifying
second-person perspective

if ever there was one.

(music)

Shaken by my other-worldly
encounter seemingly brought on

by pushing this already
existential mission to its limits,

I reset the mission

and played it beginning
to end one last time -

this time careful to do it the right way,

not wanting to disturb
whatever eldritch being

I'd upset by breaking the
mission in the first place.

After all, I thought, I
know that every mission

in Driver: San Francisco

ends with a continue and retry option,

so if I really wanted to
explore this mission again,

I could always hit the retry
button to give it another shot

after running through it normally.

So I proceeded to complete
the mission as intended -

a mission, by the way, that
ends with the antagonist Jericho

actually taking over your body

and attempting to drive you
into a lethal car accident:

(car engine roaring)
- You mean... Jericho!

- [Leila] Sit back and enjoy the show.

Not many people get to
watch themselves die.

- ...a problem that
Tanner decides to solve

by, disturbingly enough, shifting

for the first and only time in the game

into his partner Jones' body.

Yes, that partner.

- [Jones] What the heII is going on?

- Anyways, I
go to finish the mission

the normal way, staying on the path,

fully expecting the restart option

that appears after most
missions to show up.

Instead, I get to the end of the mission, and -

for some reason that
I still can't explain -

the only option was continue.

The reset option had vanished.

Panicked, I quickly hit
ALT+F4 and existed the game,

hoping I could load up my save file

and play through the mission
again, but it was too late.

It had already autosaved over my file

and the mission was gone with
no way to replay it again.

(music)

Look, Driver: San Francisco is a game

full of weird, interesting,
strikingly-designed missions -

but, to me, "The Target"
has always stood out

as the perfect example of
what makes this game special.

Video games are an entire medium

built around taking over others' bodies,

and Driver: San Francisco
is a richly existential

and metatextual reflection of this idea.

This mission in particular
brought these ideas to the fore

in a way that I wasn't fully prepared for

and that I'm only now beginning
to wrap my head around,

years and years later.

Even writing the script for this video

felt like a mind-bending exercise

in trying to explain something

that is borderline unexplainable.

You really have to play it for yourself

to get a full sense of how
crazy this mission feels.

In designing this mission,
Reflections took decades

of 3D video game conventions
and turned them on their head

to create what feels a truly
out-of-body experience.

That, to me, is an
accomplishment worth celebrating.

Please play "Driver: San Francisco."

(car engine roaring)

- [Leila] If you're
here, who's in your body?

- [Tanner] Well, no one.

...oh God.

(door shuts)

(keys jingling)

(car revving)

- All right, so a couple quick updates

on the "Driver: San Francisco" situation.

The petition to get
Ubisoft to re-list the game

that I mentioned at the
end of my last video

is now at over 70,000
signatures, which is insane.

Please, if you have any
interest in this game,

please sign this petition.

It now feels like 100,000
is within our grasp,

which is crazy, and I
can't believe I'm saying,

but it could happen -

which, to me, feels like
an unignorable number.

But! In the meantime, as
you might have noticed,

Ubisoft has not re-listed the game -

they have been ignoring the
70,000 signatures we have.

And on a totally unrelated
note, not connected at all,

Driver: San Francisco,
since my video last month,

has been in the top 10
most downloaded games

on The Pirate Bay.

...totally no relationship there,

not mentioning that for any reason at all.

Just saying, the game is not available

and it's also one of the
most pirated video games,

and has been in the top
10 most pirated games

for the past month.

Just a coincidence.

Also, totally unrelated to the fact

that this game is apparently
very popular on Pirate Bay,

did you know that if you go
to NordVPN.org/babylonian

you can go to websites,
illicit or non-illicit,

without being tracked by
your ISP or anybody else?

So that means that, for example,

if you were to go to - and
I'm not saying you should -

a website that allowed you
to download a video game

that is no longer available
and can be easily pirated

with just a few clicks

and you don't wanna get an
angry email from your ISP

saying you can't do that,

you should invest in a VPN. (laughs)

If you go to NordVPN.org/babylonian

and use coupon code "babylonian",

you'll get 70% off their three-year plan

and get one full month
of VPN coverage free.

But yeah, if you enjoyed this video,

please share it with anyone
you think would like it,

and/or subscribe to my channel

if you'd like to see more
stuff like this in the future.

I've got a lot of videos

in various stages of production right now

that I'm really excited
to get out into the world,

and I can finally start
thinking about them

now that this one's done.

So yeah, that's it from me for this time.

Hopefully the next video
comes out a little quicker.

I've got a lot of ideas
that have nothing to do

with Driver: SF, I just... this one

has been on my mind for a while

and I'm glad to finally have it done.

So thank you for watching,
and I'll see you next time.

(music)