The Game Baby Steps Presents One of the Most Meaningful Decisions I Have Ever Experienced in a Game

I've dealt with some difficult choices in video games. Several of my selections in Life is Strange continue to trouble me. Ghost of Tsushima concluding moments led me to pause the game for several minutes while I weighed my options. I am accountable for countless Krogan fatalities in the Mass Effect series that I wish I could undo. Not a single one of those situations measure up to what possibly is the hardest choice I’ve had to make in interactive media — and it concerns a giant staircase.

The Game Baby Steps, the latest game from the makers of Ape Out game, is hardly a selection-based adventure. Certainly not in any traditional sense. You must explore a expansive environment as Nate, a adult in a onesie who can barely stand on his wobbly legs. It appears to be one big ragebait joke, but Baby Steps’s strength comes from its deceptively impactful story that will sneak up on you when it's most unexpected. There’s no moment that demonstrates that power like a key selection that I can’t stop thinking about.

Note: Spoilers Ahead

A bit of context is required here. Baby Steps starts when the protagonist is suddenly taken from his family's basement and into a fantasy world. He soon realizes that moving around in it is a challenge, as years spent as a couch potato have weakened his muscles. The humorous physicality of it all arises from users guiding Nate one step at a time, trying to maintain his balance.

Nate needs help, but he has trouble voicing that to other characters. As he progresses, he comes in contact with a cast of eccentric characters in the world who each propose to give him a hand. A self-assured trekker tries to give Nate a guide, but he clumsily declines in the game’s most hilarious scene. When he drops into an trapping cavity and is given a way out, he tries to play it off like he requires no assistance and truly prefers to be confined in the cavity. As the plot unfolds, you experience no shortage of annoying scenarios where Nate makes life harder for himself because he’s not confident enough to receive help.

The Defining Decision

This culminates in Baby Steps’s key situation of selection. As Nate gets close to finishing his journey, he realizes that he must reach the summit of a snowy mountain. The unofficial caretaker of the world (who Nate has actively avoided up to this point) comes to inform him that there are two ways up. If he’s ready for a test, he can opt for a particularly extended and risky path dubbed The Challenge. It is the most formidable barrier Baby Steps game includes; attempting it appears unwise to any person.

But there’s a second option: He can just walk up a enormous coiled steps in its place and reach the summit in just moments. The single stipulation? He’ll have to address the guardian “Lord” from now on if he opts for the effortless way.

An Agonizing Decision

I am very serious when I say that this is an painful decision in the game's narrative. It’s every one of Nate's doubts about himself culminating in one absurd moment. An element of Nate's story is focused on the truth that he’s insecure of his physical appearance and manhood. Each instance he sees that dashing hiker, it’s a hard reminder of what he fails to be. Attempting The Manbreaker could be a time where he can show that he’s as capable as his unilateral competitor, but that road is bound to be filled with more humiliating failures. Is it worth suffering just to prove a point?

The staircase, on the contrary, provide Nate with another significant opportunity to choose whether to take assistance or not. The gamer cannot choose in about they turn away a map, but they can decide to allow Nate some relief and take the stairs. It ought to be an straightforward selection, but Baby Steps is remarkably shrewd about making you feel paranoid whenever you see a simple solution. The game world contains design traps that transform an easy path into a difficulty on a dime. Could the steps one more trick? Could Nate reach at the peak just to be disappointed by a final joke? And more concerning, is he prepared to be humiliated once again by being forced to call a strange individual as Master?

No Correct Answer

The excellence of that situation is that there’s no right or wrong answer. Either one results in a real situation of personal growth and emotional release for Nate. If you opt to attempt The Manbreaker, it’s an existential win. Nate eventually obtains a chance to prove that he’s as competent as others, consciously choosing a challenging way rather than enduring one that he has no alternative but to take. It’s hard, and maybe ill-advised, but it’s the dose of confidence that he needs.

But there’s no shame in the stairs too. To choose that path is to eventually enable Nate to accept help. And when he does so, he realizes that there’s no real catch waiting for him. The stairs aren’t a prank. They go on for a long time, but they’re easy to walk up and he does not fall all the way down if he falls. It’s a easy journey after extended challenges. Midway through, he even has a conversation with the trekker who has, unsurprisingly, selected The Challenge. He attempts to act casual, but you can discern that he’s fatigued, quietly regretting the unnecessary challenge. By the time Nate arrives at the peak and has to fulfill his obligation, hailing his new Lord, the arrangement scarcely looks so bad. Who has energy for shame by this odd character?

Personal Reflection

During my game, I opted for the stairs. Part of me just {wanted to call