Proceedings of DiGRA 2015: Diversity of play: Games – Cultures - Identities. © 2015 Authors & Digital Games Research Association DiGRA. Personal and educational classroom use of this paper is allowed, commercial use requires specific permission from the author. The Tragedy of Betrayal: How the design of Ico and Shadow of the Colossus elicits emotion Tom Cole Goldsmiths, University of London London, UK t.cole@gold.ac.uk ABSTRACT Ico and Shadow of the Colossus are two games of high critical acclaim that are well known for their emotional affect – particularly because some of those emotions are unusual amongst digital games. Analysis of emotion in video games often focuses on narrative and representative elements, and emotions regularly experienced by gamers such as frustration, victory, joy of discovery etc. This paper uses close textual analysis with support from cognitive theories of emotion to analyse the ludic and mechanical, in addition to representative and narrative, qualities of these games. By doing so it is shown how guilt, grief and loneliness have more chance of being elicited from the player, with emphasis on the use of ambiguity and violation of player expectations. It is hoped that this approach will encourage further work of this type in an area so that both theoretical work and future development might benefit. Keywords Emotion, Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, alterbiography, ambiguity, guilt, videogames, cognitive theory INTRODUCTION Ico and Shadow of the Colossus (2006) (hereafter referred to as SOTC) are two games for the PlayStation 2 developed by Team ICO and published by Sony. Ico tells the story of a small boy who is imprisoned in a castle to die but then makes to escape with the help of a mysterious girl called Yorda. SOTC charts the progress of Wander as he makes a pact with a mysterious being known as Dormin and seeks out 16 giant creatures, known as colossi, spread across a secluded wasteland in exchange for the resurrection of his dead lover Mono. Both games have received extensive critical acclaim and are often presented as examples of 'games as art'. Whereas many best-selling videogames (e.g. the Call of Duty, Assassin’s Creed, Grand Theft Auto franchises) utilise power fantasies and elicit emotions and pleasures arising from the challenge-frustration-victory/‘fiero’ gameplay cycle (Lazzaro, 2004), Ico and SOTC are known for their ability to bring about catharsis in the player and elicit emotions unusual amongst digital games such as grief, guilt and loneliness. Videogames players are often promised a sophisticated and wide-ranging emotional experience from their games, and yet many fall short of this aim. It is important that we explore how critically acclaimed games such as Ico and SOTC are able to achieve these