Night in the Woods - Review

I enjoyed Night in the Woods, a lot. I found myself deeply immersed in its world, its characters, thrilled with a sense of nostalgia and determined to unlock all of its mysteries as I navigated through the same lovingly crafted environments, again, and again, and again; speaking to the same beautifully flawed characters again, and again, and again to ensure I didn’t miss a line of its hyper-realistic and wacky dialogue. And yet, having finished the game at an underwhelming 29% completion, I confess I don’t feel particularly compelled to return to it.

The game plays out one day at a time. Almost every day goes like this: your character (Mae) awakes in her room. She might choose to practice bass, via a Guitar Hero style mini-game which, though enjoyable, never really gives her an opportunity to learn the songs before you mutilate them. She can also check her messages - which are usually some variation on “Hi Mae! I’m bored, come visit me in my shop”. Or, she can play Demontower on her computer, a remarkably well-constructed hack and slash roguelike game-within-a-game. She then goes downstairs, talks with her Mom, goes out, and wanders about the town speaking to the townsfolk, eventually meeting up with either of her two closest friends (or occasional another) to perform an activity. Hijinks, minigames, bonding and character development ensure. Returning home, she talks with her Dad, goes upstairs to her room and to sleep, exploring a strange dreamscape where she must find four musicians who are scattered about, her dream ending with her cowering at the appearance of a terrifying, gigantic creature. It’s fun, and the character interactions are great, but as alluded to above it’s more than a little repetitive and frustrating exploring the same areas over and over to see if anything’s changed.

The game goes on like this for some time, building up the relationships between characters before the real story begins to unfold - a tale of long-dead miners, ghosts, strange cthonic beings from beyond. It’s also a tale of Mae’s slowly deteriorating mental health; as someone who suffers from depression and anxiety, it’s all-too-relatable at times.

The writing is hands-down some of the best I’ve seen in a video game, at least as far as individual scenes and dialogue is concerned. Unfortunately the wider narrative arc is unfocused and unevenly paced; it spends its first two-thirds or so being a nostalgic and sweet coming-of-age tale about the trials and tribulations of life as a millenial under late capitalism, then rapidly becomes a conspiracy/mystery/supernatural drama which reaches its climax and conclusion rather quickly, leaving many of the previously setup character threads dangling - of course one would not expect a story which leans so heavily on existential themes and millenial malaise to give its characters a “happily ever after” conclusion, but after the game has spent so much time developing its characters, and then put them through such ferocious adversity, you might expect to see a little more change, growth as a result.

While Night in the Woods tends to get lumped in with narrative-driven games like Dear Esther, Gone Home, What Remains of Edith Finch?, and so on due to its emphasis on storytelling and exploration, it has somewhat more actual gameplay than these - some light platforming, low-stakes minigames and puzzle-solving. None of these are at all difficult, some of it is optional and the game pretty much tells you exactly what you need to do in each case. It’s a grab-bag of various gameplay elements all of which are enjoyable and well constructed - enough so that I found myself wanting more of it. Mae’s movement feels great and the animation is gorgeous as she jumps from rooftop to powerline to rooftop; I can’t help but feel that the developers could have capitalised on this more.

It’s always a treat to find games like this - games which put narrative and aesthetics first, which embrace the medium as an artform rather than as mere entertainment. For me personally, as an anxious, mental-health challenged millenial creative struggling under late capitalism with the constant dread of impending civilisational collapse bearing down, as someone who particularly enjoys supernatural/horror/mystery themes particularly against the backdrop of small town Americana - of course I absolutely adore this game, it’s a  beautiful tantalising gem which lured me in from its opening scene and wouldn’t let go until the credits. It’s tempting therefore to say nothing but nice things about it. But as a critic, it has to be said that the jumble of ideas the developers fed into this game aren’t as cohesive or well fleshed-out as they might be, with the result that the whole ends up being less than the sum of its otherwise excellent parts.  I recommend Night of the Woods, I only wish that its grasp had come nearer to its reach.