New Scientist - July 27, 2019

32 | New Scientist | 27 July 2019

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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

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

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

“ Sea of Solitude felt

unsophisticated

compared to a recent

novel that tackled

similar issues”

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

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 third-

person 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. ❚

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In Sea of Solitude, heroine

Kay battles the red-eyed,

furry monster within

The games column

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