I Am Your Beast is an anti-imperialist ballet masquerading as a low-brow action romp. I do not mean that hyperbolically, and I do not think I am stretching the metaphor. Many games — mostly first-person shooters or action RPGs — have been compared to dances before (or have been called “rhythm games,” which is not the same thing), but in the case of I Am Your Beast, I mean it literally and exactly.
I repeat: I Am Your Beast is a ballet.
I mean this first from a gameplay perspective: the player’s progression through the game — especially if you include its three free expansions — tracks that of a dancer. You begin unrefined, but joyous. You find the self-expression of the brutal violence on display — and your power with it — freeing, and flow to the music at your own pace, letting your skills and imagination reign. And then, as you play on and gain greater mastery and hunt for greater “acclaim” (in the form of S-ranks), you become more strict and precise. By the end, that self-expression has been replaced by an exact, drilled regimen — one that resembles choreography to an uncanny degree — wherein you perform with exactitude. But no less grace.
Aiding this perspective is the music, featuring modern hip-hop inspired beats which are impossible to ignore. I found myself often moving to it, even without thinking about it. The electronic-infused rap verses and drum loops become the orchestra in a kind of rap-ballet bombast.
Perhaps you are thinking of other, similar games. Games like Superhot, Ultrakill, or Hotline Miami. You might even be wondering if those games are like ballet, if you’ve bought in with me so far. But I don’t think so. In Superhot, you stop too much to call it dance. In Ultrakill, there are too many routes to perfection to call it choreography. In Hotline Miami, you can be halted too easily to call it song. For I Am Your Beast, though?
By the time you complete the game (and I do mean complete as in “beat every level in every expansion on S-rank alongside completing every optional objective”), you truly are “their” beast, and that beast is a black swan. Your movements are swift, elegant, and efficient. Your opponents — bit players on the stage — are not threats, but vehicles through which to exercise your never-stopping play (I mean that in both senses of the word). They are not dangerous to you, after all; they exist only to style upon, something made clear by the gameplay and clearer by the narrative.
And what a narrative it is! Alphonse Harding, the lead of the ballet, is an agent of death with a dark past, one that the fictional, explicitly-American Covert Operations Initiative (COI) hopes to exploit. An exploitation that Harding, echoing action-cinema classics like Rambo: First Blood and John Wick, refuses. And, like those films, this refusal expresses itself in the only medium its protagonist knows: violence. Stylish, controlled-chaotic violence.
Violence turned against those who deserve it: the military, explicitly imperialist apparatus of the United States government. If “art is getting away with it,” as Andy Warhol suggests, then I Am Your Beast really, really gets away with it.
It does not shed a single tear for General Burkin, the head of the COI, nor for any of his doomed underlings who have infiltrated Harding’s forest in an attempt to bring him in. In fact, it revels in their destruction. It finds it funny. It even plays their trauma-centric “support group” for laughs in an expansion.
Because — and this is what makes the game bold enough for its narrative to burn through its high-octane gameplay — I Am Your Beast hates American imperialism and American imperialists. It does not give them room to make their arguments, it does not hear them out, it does not negotiate. It poses imperialism as a problem — and only a problem — and makes the solution simple and singular: every single violator of Harding’s home must die until they are forced to withdraw.
Because ballet is inherently free of lyrics or dialogue, because words cannot be spoken, they must contain their theses in actions. And, in I Am Your Beast, that action is violence. That thesis is rebellion. That message is destruction. It is anti-militarist, yes, but not pacifistic: in the game, the way to dismantle oppression is to physically rip the oppressor apart.
It’s bold, and it’s intense, and it fits perfectly.
I am not a violent person, and I do not view violence as the only answer to oppression, but I Am Your Beast is strengthened by the fact that it does believe that. Its question is imperialism, and its answer is violence, end of discussion.
The one and only exception to this is shown when Harding grants mercy to a COI double-agent, Byron, who has been covertly passing intel to Harding while also trying to murder him. But even this act of mercy has nothing to do with Harding having a pang of conscience: instead, it is because Harding has developed comraderie — and a bit of a crush — on his would-be opponent, and decides to reward Byron’s queer rebellion by welcoming him into the resistance. Mercy is for the ally, not the enemy.
And, yes, I did say queer. Byron and Harding, in their communications with each other between levels, have an explicitly queer relationship, starting from the first time Byron calls Harding “babe” and ending when Harding reciprocates the word at the end of the game.
It should be mentioned here that this works largely because of the impeccable voice acting of the whole cast, who really sell every moment in their text-on-screen phone calls, which capture the awkwardness and humanity of the cast in ways that the gameplay — smooth and flawless — doesn’t.
To get back to the point, the game uses this excellent voice-acting and writing to clearly tie Bryon’s own rebellion against the COI and attachment to Harding through the lens of this queerness, and affirmatively combines the two men’s queer affection with their rebellion.
How about destroying the imperialist military for a first date?
If taken at face value, I don’t think I Am Your Beast can be coherently read in any other fashion. It is about anti-imperialism, queer rebellion, and the necessity for violence against oppression. It uses movement and rhythm and choreography to explore these themes, necessitating an every-more practiced “dance” to execute each level. It uses minimal, highly-effective dialogue and maximal, highly-visceral gamefeel to solidify these ideas.
What else should I call it, then, but a ballet? And a near-perfect one at that. Don’t you think, babe?
