Night in the Woods: A Universe That Doesn’t Care, and People That Do
Content Warnings: abuse mention, suicide mention, self-harm mention, sexual assault mention
Games are no strangers to serious themes — swing in any direction and you’ll hit a game trying to tackle one hot topic or another, be it racism or class warfare, artificial intelligence or human autonomy. We can laud these games and celebrate their creators for their vision, but we should stop to acknowledge their failings; the sterilization of these themes for the audience and the disingenuousness of simply skinning a game with the aesthetics of a struggle.
Take, for example, any fantasy setting with a race of elves: they are always othered, and often in a way that marginalizes them. BioWare’s Dragon Age series pulls from a pool of vulnerable and historically threatened cultures: people of Jewish faith, Rromani, and indigenous North Americans, hand picking from all of their traumas and combining them until the elves of Thedas are less an analogue for dispersed, colonized, & systemically opressed cultures and more a sanitized version of their former selves, their struggles never addressed with the respect or compassion required to truly explore their inspirations’ realties through metaphor.
Perspective, Honesty, and Sensitivity
This isn’t a call for games to stop tackling serious and sensitive topics, in fact, it’s quite the opposite. Games should continue to open our eyes and make us rethink our politics and biases, but they should do it better.
Night in the Woods did it better. Way better. There’s no thinly-veiled metaphor here, just a game made by people who grew up in the places and around the people they depicted. Night in the Woods triumphs in its handling of serious socio-economic and political themes because the creators were honest with themselves and their game, refusing to ever shy away. The directness of Bethany Hockenberry & Scott Benson’s writing helps Night in the Woods stand out among other politically serious games in ways most others cannot hope to achieve. It’s not a game about mental illness, wealth inequality, or loss, but it covers all of those themes with incredible genuineness and sensitivity because it’s a game about people in the Rust Belt, and those themes, those politics are intrinsic to those people and places. A game can talk about inequality in a fantasy world with elves and humans, dwarves and the like, and we’re okay with that. It’s comfortable. Night in the Woods puts it on earth, in our backyard, where it’s real, and you can’t ignore it anymore.
“I wanted someone to notice things aren’t OK. This town is like a horror movie that never stops. And not even a good one!”
Die Anywhere Else
Night in the Woods’ Possum Springs disturbed me with how similar it was to my tiny hometown in rural New York. The landscape, atmosphere, and the people all reflected where I grew up to a scary degree. It was down to the details — graffiti in the underpass, one reliable place to eat, a single main street — even the church, positioned at the highest point in town, was similar in shape to the one I recognized from my cow town. The writers, Pennsylvania natives, grew Possum Springs from their own experiences — experiences that mirrored my own.
It’s widely known that there is just one doctor’s office in Possum Springs. Dr. Hank, who’s clearly not equipped to handle the mental health of everyone in the entire town, is reminiscent of the one therapist’s office I had access to in my own county, a few towns over. The lack of resources that the characters in the game experience is not just a way to give everyone in the game depression and anxiety, but a reality for children, teens, and adults growing up in small, agricultural or industrial communities in America. Night in the Woods makes mental illness a part of life, as each character deals with their struggle personally and with their friends, learning to come to terms with the fact that there is no easy solution, no immediate cure.
The game’s protagonist, college-dropout Mae Borowski, is given a journal to treat her “anger management issues,” which manifested years ago, in her childhood. Throughout the game, Mae suffers from nightmares and bouts of irritability, overwhelming sadness, and anxiety. She lashes out at her friends, then returns to normal, expecting everything to be fine, blaming her behavior on her anger issues. In reality, Mae has been suffering from undiagnosed mental illness for years. While never completely addressed, it’s highly suggested that she is struggling with chronic depersonalization-derealization disorder, and, as she begins to exhibit schizotypal behaviors later in the game, potentially more than that.
Other characters suffer as well, their struggles laid out plainly and non-judgmentally. Beatrice “Bea” Santello clearly exhibits major depressive disorder, often describing her casual, constant sadness and lethargy to the group. Angus Delaney, an abuse survivor, struggled with self-harm and suicidal thoughts well into his youth, until he found peace and comfort with his boyfriend, Gregg Lee, who is explicitly bipolar, and one of the most holistic and considerate representations of mania in any media.
It feels wrong to call this a theme, that theme being: small towns without resources for mental illness grow folks with destructive coping mechanisms and behaviors relating to said undiagnosed/underdiagnosed mental illnesses, those folks have nowhere to turn and no way to help themselves, and they end up screwing up because of it, like how Mae dropped out of college. It’s not a theme when it’s our reality — the reality of every kid growing up in every tiny farm town, watching sunsets from barn roofs and old train towers and wondering what went wrong, why they did that stupid thing they did, how to move forward.
“I’m like, proud of us all, for having good-ass lives in a shitty, stupid, good-ass town. Here’s to you, Possum Springs. Here’s to survival.”
Nothing Can Save us Forever…
Early in the game, Bea talks about the Young Socialists Club she’s a part of, and throughout the game, we see Possum Springs’ residents struggle to unionize. It doesn’t feel preachy, but natural. It would be insincere without it. Possum Springs, like many Rust Belt communities, was built on the mining industry, naturally exploitative work for the townsfolk. The mines don’t last forever, and when they’re gone, so is Possum Springs’ prosperity. The economy slows to a halt, jobs are lost, bills don’t get paid, houses get foreclosed. Half of Mae’s street is literally collapsing into the earth thanks to the sinkholes that now riddle the town. Again, it’s not a theme, it’s a reality of the Appalachia region where the writers live. They know because they were there, are there. They’ve experienced being broke and desperate, so the stories woven into the game are genuine.
Night in the Woods isn’t a tour of the Rust Belt or any rural town, it’s an authentic version of the people and events that live and go on there. It doesn’t slap a fantasy skin over the reality of wealth inequality in America, it shows a father and daughter lose their home to a dead mother’s cancer bills. The very same father can’t afford to fire a sexually abusive employee because they’d fail without him. All he can do is warn his daughter to never be alone with him. Bea’s life is not fantasy, it is reality. She gave up her dream of going to college because her family couldn’t afford it, not after her mother died, not after her hospital bills kept coming in. She becomes involved in the Young Socialists because she needs to survive, and capitalism is killing her. Her story isn’t meant to blow your mind — her story is my neighbor’s story. It is the reality of the American Dream.
Gregg & Angus dream of moving to Bright Harbor, a city on the coast. It’s expensive, but more diverse and tolerant, so they both work as much as they can. They work in a convenience shop and a video rental store, and rent out a small apartment in town together. It’s not hard to imagine how long it will take them to move, if they ever truly can. Despite the challenges ahead of them, they are getting by, as best they can. They are a familiar story. They are every queer couple in Possum Springs and in my cow town.
…But a Lot of Things Can Save us Today
Night in the Woods brings up a number of social and political commentaries throughout its course, but never feels insincere or forced. It is a special and important game because it comes from people who want to see themselves represented truly, holistically, genuinely. It treats its subject matter with respect and for those who have not had to confront these realities before, it makes them real.
Night in the Woods is for the ones from tiny towns, those of us who got out alive, those of us who didn’t, and those who stayed because it’s still home.
