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Feeling the pain
Views Culture The games column
Feeling the pain Great storytelling and rounded characters don’t feature that often in video games. A new genre tackling issues around mental health will only work if that changes, says Jacob Aron
In Sea of Solitude, heroine Kay battles the red-eyed, furry monster within
ELECTRONIC ARTS UK
Jacob Aron is New Scientist’s deputy news editor. He has been playing video games for 25 years, but still isn’t very good at them. Follow him on Twitter @jjaron
Games
Sea of Solitude Jo-Mei Games On PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One
Hellblade: Senua’s sacrifice Ninja Theory On PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch
32 | New Scientist | 27 July 2019
VIDEO games, as a medium, normally see you saving the world rather than saving yourself. The technical challenges and large teams involved in creating lavish 3D worlds and complex scenarios means that there is rarely room to also tell the kind of personal stories that lie at the heart of novels or films. But this is starting to change with titles tackling issues around mental health. Sea of Solitude, released earlier this month, places you in the shoes of Kay, a young woman cast adrift in a small boat on a dark, stormy sea. Immediately, you can tell something isn’t quite right, as Kay appears to be a furry humanoid with glowing red eyes, but for the first few minutes, at least, it is quite fun. Quickly, the inky black gives way to gorgeous sunshine in a flooded city and you meet a strange flying girl. Then the darkness returns. A gigantic, crab-like monster blocks Kay’s path, berating her: “You worthless piece of shit, you have no idea what you are doing!” The game involves navigating around a series of these large creatures, all
of which represent some aspect of Kay or her family. It is clear she is lonely, unhappy and struggling to relate to others: as the game goes on, audio clips from her “real” life play out, detailing how she failed to notice her younger brother was being bullied at school, or how her parents met and eventually
“Sea of Solitude felt unsophisticated compared to a recent novel that tackled similar issues” divorced. Kay absorbs their darkness, restoring them and the landscape, but at a cost to herself. I admire what Sea of Solitude is attempting, and found myself feeling for Kay and her family, but the metaphors are fairly basic. It felt unsophisticated compared to something like Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, a recent novel by Gail Honeyman that memorably tackled similar issues. The biggest effect Sea of Solitude had on me was to trigger a form of
climate anxiety, as flying over abandoned rooftops made me worry about the floods to come. That isn’t to say games can’t successfully examine mental health. In Hellblade: Senua’s sacrifice, the titular Senua experiences psychosis and hears voices. This is brilliantly realised with the aid of binaural audio – sound recorded with two microphones placed in the ears of a model head. Played with headphones, you can be bombarded with sounds from all sides or hear someone whisper directly in your ear. The game, partly funded by the Wellcome Trust medical charity, sees Senua explore a dark version of Norse mythology as she tries to resurrect the soul of her dead lover. The origins of Senua’s hallucinations are ambiguous – some may represent real people from her past, while others are like facets of herself. It is also unclear exactly what role the player has in all of this. You control Senua from a thirdperson perspective, but at times she seems to speak directly through the screen to you. Like Sea of Solitude, Hellblade’s mental health metaphors also lack subtlety – darkness abounds, you literally fight demons and must often examine the world from a new perspective to progress. But the superb audio elevates the experience. The game also warns you that failing too often leads to your progress being deleted, lending a sense of genuine peril. When I finally reached the end of Senua’s journey, I felt glad to have accompanied and learned from her, but also pleased to leave her finally in some kind of peace. ❚
Feeling the pain Great storytelling and rounded characters don’t feature that often in video games. A new genre tackling issues around mental health will only work if that changes, says Jacob Aron
In Sea of Solitude, heroine Kay battles the red-eyed, furry monster within
ELECTRONIC ARTS UK
Jacob Aron is New Scientist’s deputy news editor. He has been playing video games for 25 years, but still isn’t very good at them. Follow him on Twitter @jjaron
Games
Sea of Solitude Jo-Mei Games On PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One
Hellblade: Senua’s sacrifice Ninja Theory On PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch
32 | New Scientist | 27 July 2019
VIDEO games, as a medium, normally see you saving the world rather than saving yourself. The technical challenges and large teams involved in creating lavish 3D worlds and complex scenarios means that there is rarely room to also tell the kind of personal stories that lie at the heart of novels or films. But this is starting to change with titles tackling issues around mental health. Sea of Solitude, released earlier this month, places you in the shoes of Kay, a young woman cast adrift in a small boat on a dark, stormy sea. Immediately, you can tell something isn’t quite right, as Kay appears to be a furry humanoid with glowing red eyes, but for the first few minutes, at least, it is quite fun. Quickly, the inky black gives way to gorgeous sunshine in a flooded city and you meet a strange flying girl. Then the darkness returns. A gigantic, crab-like monster blocks Kay’s path, berating her: “You worthless piece of shit, you have no idea what you are doing!” The game involves navigating around a series of these large creatures, all
of which represent some aspect of Kay or her family. It is clear she is lonely, unhappy and struggling to relate to others: as the game goes on, audio clips from her “real” life play out, detailing how she failed to notice her younger brother was being bullied at school, or how her parents met and eventually
“Sea of Solitude felt unsophisticated compared to a recent novel that tackled similar issues” divorced. Kay absorbs their darkness, restoring them and the landscape, but at a cost to herself. I admire what Sea of Solitude is attempting, and found myself feeling for Kay and her family, but the metaphors are fairly basic. It felt unsophisticated compared to something like Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, a recent novel by Gail Honeyman that memorably tackled similar issues. The biggest effect Sea of Solitude had on me was to trigger a form of
climate anxiety, as flying over abandoned rooftops made me worry about the floods to come. That isn’t to say games can’t successfully examine mental health. In Hellblade: Senua’s sacrifice, the titular Senua experiences psychosis and hears voices. This is brilliantly realised with the aid of binaural audio – sound recorded with two microphones placed in the ears of a model head. Played with headphones, you can be bombarded with sounds from all sides or hear someone whisper directly in your ear. The game, partly funded by the Wellcome Trust medical charity, sees Senua explore a dark version of Norse mythology as she tries to resurrect the soul of her dead lover. The origins of Senua’s hallucinations are ambiguous – some may represent real people from her past, while others are like facets of herself. It is also unclear exactly what role the player has in all of this. You control Senua from a thirdperson perspective, but at times she seems to speak directly through the screen to you. Like Sea of Solitude, Hellblade’s mental health metaphors also lack subtlety – darkness abounds, you literally fight demons and must often examine the world from a new perspective to progress. But the superb audio elevates the experience. The game also warns you that failing too often leads to your progress being deleted, lending a sense of genuine peril. When I finally reached the end of Senua’s journey, I felt glad to have accompanied and learned from her, but also pleased to leave her finally in some kind of peace. ❚