Night in the Woods (PC)
The coming-of-age narrative about the difficult transition from youth to adulthood is such a common literary subject that the German term bildungsroman, essentially meaning “education novel”, slipped its way into the English language just to describe it in a single word. This incredibly common genre rarely addresses the modern state of growing older though, because while shifting into adulthood still involves a drastic shift in perspective and attitude, a new step has been added by modern society. The push for college to be essentially required for all, the rising prevalence of dead-end jobs to get by in an increasingly expensive world, and the cultural splintering caused by the rise of the internet has lead to late-stage capitalism inserting a strange middle period between childhood and adulthood, and Night in the Woods aims to turn a lens on that rough period while also softening the blow by making the involved players all colorful quirky humanoid animals.
Mae Borowski is a 20 year old cat who returns home to the small town of Possum Springs after dropping out of college. Having not seen the place since high school, immediately Mae must come to grips with a place she now must embrace in a fundamentally different way. Her old friends all work jobs out of necessity despite having once been ambitious and rebellious, the town is slowly being subsumed by corporate businesses as many locals begin moving away in search of actual opportunity, and Mae’s desire to relive her past is tinged with sadness as it’s clear that everyone involved has changed in some form. Where once the energetic fox Gregg was an eccentric partner for mundane crimes and strange excursions, he’s now having to adjust his personality to fit into a sustainable lifestyle, and his relationship with the mild-mannered bear Angus has lead to him assuming more responsibilities. The gothic alligator Bea has been forced into being the breadwinner for a broken family, her heart hardened by a personal tragedy. Mae is essentially returned to her old friends as she left them, but when she expects to find them ready to pick up where they left off, she has to face the fact that life can’t continue to be the exciting adventures of her youth as adulthood begins making demands of her.
Still, despite covering heavy topics, the game grounds itself by presenting it all with believability and in the form of a natural progression. Gregg, Angus, and Bea are not miserable people and try to make time for entertainment such as a band practice you find yourself involved in, and after they work on most in-game days, you can choose to either hang out with Gregg or Bea to entertain yourself. Pursuing one friend’s hang-outs exclusively per play through ends up with the best results as you get a full narrative about how that person has coped with the changes adulthood has brought to their life and Mae’s path to discovering it is both filled with serious moments of introspection on the demands of life and amusing activities like shooting targets in the forest, building a rabbit robot, and using a fountain to squirt people at the mall. The most involved gameplay portions (besides an optional top down action game you can play on Mae’s computer) have to be the band practice sections where you need to use the number keys to play the bass, and it’s a pretty competent rhythm game backing up the silly lyrics of the songs being sung. It’s a little distracting to try and read the text since there are no voices and sometimes there are fun visuals of your band mates during the tunes, but there is no punishment for doing poorly outside of missing out on an achievement. These little amusements involve some gameplay to keep you active between the text bubble conversations, but the writing helps to keep the huge amount of reading entertaining.
The characters of Night in the Woods are definitely the highlight, each one that you spend any decent amount of time interacting with developing a clear voice. More importantly, much of the dialogue is written to be amusing despite its often casual construction, characters not always expressing themselves perfectly but fumbling into unusual and humorous phrasing by doing so. Some characters like Gregg do lean a little too hard into repetition, but most of the main cast, despite being different forms of human-shaped animals, feel believable and distinct. The sarcasm of Bea, the wild energy of Gregg, your relaxed father, the casual poet Selma, the eccentric weirdo Germ, these are people you get to know well over the course of the game. Some people like the preacher and the homeless man she tries to help have narratives that develop each time you visit them, and some people like your mother will eventually touch on a deeper subject instead of just telling silly jokes so long as you keep interacting with them. The game turns its attention to many harsh realities of small town life and the struggles of adjusting to an adulthood where nothing goes as planned, but it finds plenty of moments of levity, helped along by a protagonist who is still childish at heart and thus able to draw it out of situations when they aren’t too serious.
Most of Night in the Woods is an adventure game in the style of exploring a town and speaking to people. There are very few puzzles and interactive moments are often more for fun results rather than laying out a task you must succeed at to progress. The focus is definitely on the many conversations had throughout your adventure, some substantial like finding out how your friendships have developed with the core cast and others adding color to the grander narrative focus like two men standing outside a bar who find comfort and camaraderie only through their appreciation of the local sports team. The joke-filled writing actually gives the game overall the same sarcastic edge that is common to the kind of person grappling with the difficult period of life this game takes place during, disarming unfortunate truths with critical humor. Since you interact with both older and younger characters though, you are also given a few different perspectives both on Mae’s place now that she’s back in town and how they are dealing with their own place in life, and the attention to a broader picture of life makes Possum Springs more than just the sleepy little town where all the fun conversations between young adults take place.
The writing drifting between humorous and heavy topics so well is definitely the big draw of Night in the Woods, but having to walk through a barely changing town every day to try and ensure you speak with each person to progress their specific arcs isn’t quite the best way the game could have gone about doing it. In some ways, having to traipse around the same place every day to meet up with the same people is a commentary on the mundanity of Mae’s life. Technically you do not need to visit the church every day, but you miss out on speaking with the people in and near it if you do so, and even getting to your required destinations can still involve walking through town a bit too often. The periods between conversations feels slow because of this and you hit upon the old curse of where the reward is so good you don’t want to miss out on it but it involves doing something rather banal and uninteresting to get to it. It’s hard to find a perfect middle ground for trying to make a point about the small town and making navigation to points of interest easier, but the depth added to the grander picture of the game by taking the time to do the side activities is at least worth the effort.
The plot of Night in the Woods isn’t simply about reconnecting with old friends though. After her return Mae begins to notice strange occurrences around town ranging from an actual arm in the street to what Mae believes to be a ghost. All the while, Mae is beginning to have unusual dreams about the supernatural, and while this adds a greater mystery to the plot and something to hang progress both in personal narratives and the sequence of events on, it seems to pull attention away from the more interesting focus. Trying to solve this mystery does play into the main themes of the adventure and forces Mae to come to grips with some of the things she’s mulling over, but at the same time it feels like the game would rather wrap up this mystery plot rather than see every character arc to completion. While her friends are fleshed out and Mae’s perspective on life is definitely examined, the story wraps up without a clear path forward for her and only a bit of discussion on how she is going to decide on her new place in life. While investigating things involved in the mystery gives excuses for certain events to take place, the playable dreams which don’t amount to much play into the weaker supernatural side of the narrative and add to the pacing problems.
Luckily, when it wants to tackle a subject like mental health or discussing the places of different people in the modern world, Night in the Woods sticks the landing. The impact of its themes is certainly amplified if you can relate to the anxieties of its protagonist, but the music and setting allow the melancholy caused by such considerations be effective even if you aren’t already in the same shoes as the main cast. Every helping of hilarity helps the moments where depression and other disorders intersect with the plot prove more palatable, and since these are characters organically discussing things, it never comes off as heavy-handed or unreasonably introspective. Some characters can’t even express what they mean to say properly at any point even if it might have helped the story if they had done so, and it’s even arguable that some of the supernatural side is a manifestation of Mae’s personal hang-ups. As befitting a game where character conversations are the primary focus, they are built to be interesting no matter the subject, and the dialogue choices you use to interact with them make it more than just passive observation. You will still have a heaping helping of the game’s writing strength by the time it’s all wrapped up, so the stumbles as it tells its more structured narrative don’t keep you from the main appeal for long.
THE VERDICT: A bildungsroman for young adults experiencing arrested development, Nights in the Woods provides humor on top of its serious examination of the increasingly difficult shift from youth to adulthood. When the characters are interacting Night in the Woods is at its strongest, but the activities placed between it like city navigation and supernatural plot events are distracting and affect what could otherwise be a tight, impactful, smartly written examination of a specific form of young adulthood. The core cast members are delightful and nuanced, and the side stories prop up your perspective on both the central themes and the troubles of a small town. Having more to explore than just the core narrative make the game richer and there are plenty of emotional moments throughout, but pacing problems keep this game from being absolutely exemplary.
And so, I give Night in the Woods for PC…
A GREAT rating. Night in the Woods has many moments where the momentum begins to build effectively such as a party in the woods, the mysterious appearance of what Mae believes is a ghost, and arguments that threaten to split up personal relationships. Unfortunately, we aren’t always able to follow through on them immediately, and the space placed between steps in a personal narrative is a bit hard to stomach. Without either the supernatural elements or the pokey town traversal Night in the Woods could have paced itself better, but despite the small issues with the flow of the game, the writing is of such a high caliber that it is still worth the time investment to make those slow trips to each part of town and play the unusual dream sequences. While saying a game where characters make incredibly goofy and dumb jokes at each other has writing of a high caliber might seem ridiculous from the outside, the attention paid to making these characters both believable as people while having the depth to them to draw out a more emotional narrative shows the effectiveness of turning a lens to more than just the serious moments of life. Were it all angst it would be hard to care for the main cast, but the humor and relatability of them make their struggles more meaningful as we are not just watching someone wallow in the harsh realities of reluctant employment and societal decline.
While it feels like the game doesn’t have an absolute statement on this 21st century take on adulthood, it offers many perspectives while also examining the decline of a small town and how people deal with it. Certain aspects can resonate incredibly well with people while also showing others who haven’t experienced such troubles a realistic picture. Cartoon animals and plenty of wit make it palatable despite delving into rough topics like mental wellness, but the character-focused angle is where it really shines and it should have remained the emphasis. A little lost in its side activities and the mystery narrative, Night in the Woods should have stuck to its more intimate picture of its characters, small town life, and the difficulties of being an adult in a time where what an adult is continues to change.