We can't tell you about two of the best games of 2016
Two of the best games of 2016 are already out.
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You've probably heard about "The Witness" and "Firewatch." We've written about both, albeit in extremely surface ways.
They're both quiet, single-player games set in the woods. They're both evocative of something more than what's presented on the surface.
And, most importantly, they're both games that are easily spoiled.
UGH SPOILERS!
What do you do in "The Witness"? You solve puzzles! Also, you meditate on the lightness of being. And consider the weight of philosophies from hundreds or thousands of years ago in the light of modernity.
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Sounds weird, right? It isn't, I promise. But going into much more depth would outright ruin all the beautiful secrets you'll only find by playing the game yourself.
And what of "Firewatch"? What's the game about? It's about exploring the Wyoming wilderness in the late 1980s. Also, it's about dealing with personal loss and regaining a foothold on a life that went sideways.
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Less weird sounding? No doubt, but the same situation applies here: talking much more about the finer points of "Firewatch" could easily spoil the bigger experience for people who haven't played it.
And this is the rub: as games become more mature, so do their stories. And the more mature these stories become, the more adept at telling stories games are, the harder it is to tell you about whole games without ruining them.
This is less of an issue in the world of film, where consuming media means sitting through a few hours of a movie. More importantly, it's a passive experience. Sure, your perception and personality and beliefs (and whatever else) affect how you feel about a film.
But with games, you make them your own.
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Your engagement with them is the final missing piece of the system: you are missing cog in the machine that makes the game happen. Does a video game exist without the player? Like, whoa, man.
(Spoilers: it does!)
So, uh, what do we do?
We're going to have to find different, better ways to discuss games. That falls on us first — the people writing this stuff — but it also applies to readers. We're all going to have to get a little less worried about specific spoilers and a little more open about our own personal experiences in games, spoilers be damned.
Otherwise, we're facing a world where speaking about games is relegated to surface level coverage of "look how pretty this game is," where reviews are relegated to the equivalent of product reviews, and critical discussion is only open to those who spend hours toiling away on a game to completion.
And what does that mean for games like "Firewatch" and "The Witness"? It means talking about how I struggled to reconcile my own personality with that of the main character in "Firewatch," and it means discussing the massive, mysterious structure underneath the island in "The Witness" as a metaphor for the entire game — for life itself, maybe!
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It means being unafraid to "ruin" a game by speaking in specifics about the mechanisms it uses to deliver emotional impact. That's the point of art, right? To evoke emotions? And isn't that the most important aspect of games — what you get from them, not what you see on the journey towards that emotional response?
I don't know, honestly, but it's something we need to start talking about. The two best games of 2016 so far, "The Witness" and "Firewatch," are fully worth your time. I'd love to tell you specifically why, but, well, you know why I can't.
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