Games: Hyper Light Drifter
Hyper Light Drifter is an action game with a pixel art aesthetic and tight controls reminiscent of games from the 1990s (spoilers below). You control a futuristic sword fighter who embarks on a quest to save the world from some indeterminate evil.
You progress through a sprawling world of forests, mountains, lakes, sand dunes, and underground laboratories, fighting increasingly challenging enemies.
The story is never explicitly given to you. There is no dialogue, no exposition, no lore you may read on. Much like the life we are endowed with, at some point you become conscious in a world that predates you, have all sorts of questions for which there are no definitive answers, and must carry on doing what your condition renders unavoidable. To what end? People come up with clever theories but none is necessarily correct.
The character you control appears to be suffering from some severe illness. At several points during the adventure they cough out blood and look considerably weakened. The protagonist is haunted by visions of inimical figures that pursue, attack, and mortally wound our hero while plunging the world into darkness. Who may those shadowy forces be and what are their plans? There is no obvious answer.
As you move around the map, you collect tokens that may be exchanged for permanent upgrades to your gear. For example, you can buy an extended magazine for your gun and augment your sword to also deflect any projectiles fired your way. This is how you become more potent, though you never reach a point where the game feels easy. Even with all the upgrades you still need to pay attention to your movement, avoid attacks, and strike when the time is right.
The audio design is essential to the atmosphere of the game. Each area has its own theme. The overall mood of solitude in a dangerous place is reinforced through sound. Though it can feel repetitive if you backtrack a lot—which you will do if you are curious enough to check every edge of the screen for hidden passages.
What I like the most about Hyper Light Drifter is the story it communicates through its subtle style. It leaves threads open-ended for the player to interpret according to their own sensitivities.
To me, what we are presented with is an allegory for fear; the fear of losing that which we hold dear. Our hero is confronted with the monsters that spring from within and must overcome them in order to move on. Where to is unknown. To reign supreme over those horrors requires that we embed in feeling the recognition that we do not actually own anything: not the tangible goods, such as the sword we wield, nor the intangible qualities we colloquially refer to as “ours”.