Baby Steps Includes Among the Most Significant Choices I've Ever Encountered in a Game

I've faced some challenging choices in interactive entertainment. Some of my decisions in Life is Strange continue to trouble me. Ghost of Tsushima's final sequence prompted me to set down my controller for several minutes while I considered my alternatives. I am accountable for countless Krogan deaths in Mass Effect that I would love to reverse. Not one of those instances compare to what could be the toughest selection I've ever made in a video game — and it concerns a giant staircase.

Baby Steps, the recent title from the makers of Ape Out game, isn’t exactly a selection-based adventure. Definitely not in the conventional way. You simply have to explore a vast game world as the main character Nate, a grown-up in childish attire who can hardly stay upright on his shaky limbs. It looks like an exercise in frustration, but Baby Steps’s power lies in its surprisingly deep narrative that will catch you off guard when it's most unexpected. There’s no situation that demonstrates that power like one major choice that I can’t stop thinking about.

Alert: Spoilers

Some background information is required here. Baby Steps begins as the protagonist is suddenly taken from his parents’ basement and into a fictional universe. He quickly discovers that walking through it is a challenge, as years spent as a couch potato have atrophied his limbs. The humorous physicality of it all comes from gamers directing Nate gradually, trying to maintain his balance.

Nate requires assistance, but he has difficulty expressing that to other characters. As he progresses, he encounters a cast of eccentric characters in the world who each propose to assist him. A cool, confident hiker attempts to offer Nate a navigation aid, but he clumsily declines in the game’s funniest instant. When he drops into an inescapable pit and is presented with a ladder, he tries to play it off like he can manage alone and genuinely desires to be confined in the cavity. As the plot unfolds, you experience no shortage of irritating episodes where Nate makes life harder for himself because he’s too self-conscious to take support.

The Ultimate Choice

This culminates in Baby Steps’s key situation of selection. As Nate approaches the conclusion his quest, he finds that he must ascend of a snow-capped peak. The de facto groundskeeper of the world (who Nate has desperately tried to duck up to this point) appears to inform him that there are two ways up. If he’s prepared for difficulty, he can opt for a particularly extended and hazardous route dubbed The Manbreaker. It is the most formidable barrier Baby Steps game includes; choosing it looks risky to any human.

But there’s a second option: He can just walk up a gigantic spiral staircase instead and reach the summit in a few minutes. The only caveat? He’ll have to call the groundskeeper “Sir” from now on if he chooses the simple path.

A Painful Choice

I am very serious when I say that this is an painful decision in the game's narrative. It’s every one of Nate's doubts about himself culminating in a particularly bizarre situation. An element of Nate's story is centered around the reality that he’s insecure of his body and his masculinity. Every time he sees that dashing hiker, it’s a difficult memory of all he lacks. Attempting The Challenge could be a instance where he can prove that he’s as competent as his unilateral competitor, but that path is likely filled with more humiliating failures. Does it merit struggling just to prove a point?

The stairs, on the contrary, give Nate another big moment to either accept or reject help. The gamer cannot choose in if they reject navigation help, but they can choose to give Nate a break and opt for the steps. It should be an easy choice, but Baby Steps is exceptionally cunning about creating doubt anytime you see a simple solution. The environment includes design traps that change a secure way into a obstacle suddenly. Could the steps an additional deception? Will Nate get all the way to the top just to be disappointed by a final joke? And more concerning, is he willing to be emasculated another time by being compelled to refer to some weirdo Lord?

No Correct Answer

The excellence of that situation is that there’s no right or wrong answer. Either one brings about a authentic instance of protagonist evolution and therapeutic resolution for Nate. If you choose to tackle The Challenge, it’s an personal triumph. Nate eventually obtains a opportunity to demonstrate that he’s as able as anyone else, willingly taking on a tough path rather than suffering through one that he has no choice but to follow. It’s difficult, and possibly risky, but it’s the moment of strength that he craves.

But there’s no embarrassment in the steps either. To select that route is to at last permit Nate to receive assistance. And when he does so, he finds that there’s no hidden trick waiting for him. The staircase is not a trick. They continue for a while, but they’re simple to climb and he won't slip to the bottom if he falls. It’s a simple climb after hours of struggle. Halfway up, he even has a chat with the outdoorsman who has, unsurprisingly, chosen to take The Challenge. He attempts to act casual, but you can tell that he’s fatigued, quietly regretting the needless difficulty. By the time Nate reaches the summit and has to meet his agreement, hailing his new Lord, the arrangement scarcely looks so unpleasant. Who has concern for humiliation by this freak?

Personal Reflection

During my game, I opted for the stairs. Part of me just {wanted to call