Too Human Back Story
One shortcoming of Too Human is the developers really expected their intended audience to have some understanding of Norse mythology. Even though Too human takes place in a future reality where humanity is almost extinct and robots are fighting to make human's extinct, this is really just a retelling of the end of the Norse gods. In this story humans enhanced through cybernetics are called gods and goblins, elves and giants are all robots. This post will contain some spoilers for Too Human so beware if you haven't completed the game.
To understand how the world got to this point you need to know about the Ymir. In the game the Ymir are explained in a cut scene just over half way thought the game. The Ymir were a dominate nation that eventually turned to robots to fight their wars for them. Well eventually the Ymir became extinct but their war machines continued to fight. It seems the wold has entered a nuclear winter and the all the earth is covered in ice and snow. The Aesir (human gods) protect humans from the machines and hope to return the world back to it's original state.
In the Norse story of Balder, he is the youngest son of Odin and considering his favorite. It is said Balder and his mother had dreams of Balder's death so all things on the earth must swear to not hurt Balder. Everything swears to this except Mistletoe. Since mistletoe is too young no one thinks the plant matters. Since Balder is essentially immortal all the gods take turns throwing items at Balder. Well Loki decides to create an arrow made of mistletoe and helps the blind god Hod aim and shoot the arrow at Balder. So Hod with Loki's help kills Balder which sends Balder to Helheim. At Balder's funeral he is placed in his ship and it's sent to sea ablaze. His wife Nyanna is so overwhelmed she jumps on the boat and dies joining Balder in Helheim. In Norse mythology is you die in glorious battle you are sent to Asgard (think heaven) but if you die any other way you go to Helheim (underworld). Both Hod and Loki flee which ends up sealing Hod's fate as he is hunted down and killed.
Odin asks Hel, ruler of Helheim, to return Balder to the living. She decides that she will return Balder only if every living thing on earth weeps for Balder. All things on earth weep for Balder except one giantess whom is Loki in disguise. This leaves Balder in Helheim till he is reborn after Ragnarok. Loki eventually returns and brags of his treachery. Loki is then captured and tortured till his eventual escape. In the end he joins the monsters against the Aesir and dies along with all the other gods and monsters at Ragnarok.
In Too Human the opening cut scene of the game shows an Aesir going down to Helheim to retrieve Balder. This turn of events is not from Norse mythology but does lead to some interesting events to unfold. From the game you really don't know that Balder was killed by Hod or that it's Balder the Aesir are retrieving because they never explain this until the very end of the game. You just know that Balder was hurt badly and was gone for some time. Balder has no memory of his death as well and is feed several half truths during the game. I tend to think that the developers should have revealed Balder was dead and retrieved from Helhiem instead of showing a cut scene where you really don't know what's going on. Once you learn this fact several of the cut scene interactions have a whole new spin to them once you realize Balder was dead.
Too Human has been announced as a trilogy for the Xbox 360 so we will have to see how the developers decide to expend on this story. I have vastly enjoyed this game for it's variation on this norse legend and look forward to the upcoming games. I hope this post helps clear up some of the missing pieces from the Too Human story. I'm a little surprised at the review scores for this game and how they have dismissed the game's story. It seems to me that if Silicon Knights had spent a little more time laying the foundation for the story the reviews would have been much better.
To understand how the world got to this point you need to know about the Ymir. In the game the Ymir are explained in a cut scene just over half way thought the game. The Ymir were a dominate nation that eventually turned to robots to fight their wars for them. Well eventually the Ymir became extinct but their war machines continued to fight. It seems the wold has entered a nuclear winter and the all the earth is covered in ice and snow. The Aesir (human gods) protect humans from the machines and hope to return the world back to it's original state.
In the Norse story of Balder, he is the youngest son of Odin and considering his favorite. It is said Balder and his mother had dreams of Balder's death so all things on the earth must swear to not hurt Balder. Everything swears to this except Mistletoe. Since mistletoe is too young no one thinks the plant matters. Since Balder is essentially immortal all the gods take turns throwing items at Balder. Well Loki decides to create an arrow made of mistletoe and helps the blind god Hod aim and shoot the arrow at Balder. So Hod with Loki's help kills Balder which sends Balder to Helheim. At Balder's funeral he is placed in his ship and it's sent to sea ablaze. His wife Nyanna is so overwhelmed she jumps on the boat and dies joining Balder in Helheim. In Norse mythology is you die in glorious battle you are sent to Asgard (think heaven) but if you die any other way you go to Helheim (underworld). Both Hod and Loki flee which ends up sealing Hod's fate as he is hunted down and killed.
Odin asks Hel, ruler of Helheim, to return Balder to the living. She decides that she will return Balder only if every living thing on earth weeps for Balder. All things on earth weep for Balder except one giantess whom is Loki in disguise. This leaves Balder in Helheim till he is reborn after Ragnarok. Loki eventually returns and brags of his treachery. Loki is then captured and tortured till his eventual escape. In the end he joins the monsters against the Aesir and dies along with all the other gods and monsters at Ragnarok.
In Too Human the opening cut scene of the game shows an Aesir going down to Helheim to retrieve Balder. This turn of events is not from Norse mythology but does lead to some interesting events to unfold. From the game you really don't know that Balder was killed by Hod or that it's Balder the Aesir are retrieving because they never explain this until the very end of the game. You just know that Balder was hurt badly and was gone for some time. Balder has no memory of his death as well and is feed several half truths during the game. I tend to think that the developers should have revealed Balder was dead and retrieved from Helhiem instead of showing a cut scene where you really don't know what's going on. Once you learn this fact several of the cut scene interactions have a whole new spin to them once you realize Balder was dead.
Too Human has been announced as a trilogy for the Xbox 360 so we will have to see how the developers decide to expend on this story. I have vastly enjoyed this game for it's variation on this norse legend and look forward to the upcoming games. I hope this post helps clear up some of the missing pieces from the Too Human story. I'm a little surprised at the review scores for this game and how they have dismissed the game's story. It seems to me that if Silicon Knights had spent a little more time laying the foundation for the story the reviews would have been much better.
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