Night in the Woods is Everything.

And I don’t say that lightly. I have never in my life found a piece of media that spoke so directly to my heart like this before, be it film, literature or games. Everything about Night in the Woods from beginning to end felt so in tune with my life, my experiences, my values and the things I look for in a story and in a game. I’ve never had that experience before. There was not a single bum note throughout the entire game that rang false to me or that negatively threw me off. Even with other games and stories that I’ve loved there were usually aspects of it that didn’t quite rub me right or that I had to compartmentalize in some fashion or wish it had done differently, but I never had to do that here. Night in the Woods was everything I hoped it would be, and then so much more.

Night in the Woods is largely a game centered around characters and setting, and exploring them both. Mae’s small mining town Possum Springs is wonderfully and fully realized with a great sense of place. Exploring the nooks and crannies of the town and learning about its history and the people that reside in it is one of the highlights of the game as the town is lovingly fleshed out and created. You physically explore it through platforming elements by jumping and falling, climbing onto lamp posts and telephone wires, and running through the richly detailed setting. The game is made up of Mae’s daily life as she explores the town and talks to its residents with each new day offering new conversations, new backstories to unveil and new things to do. As the game progresses, more and more areas of the town become available and new characters show up and the game never lets up. Even in the game’s final sequence there are still new characters to find and talk to and get to know.

Breaking up the core gameplay of exploration and talking with the residents are small minigame-type interactions. None of these are particularly difficult or challenging (with the exception of a very fleshed out and enjoyable music-based band minigame), but they don’t need to be. Their primary purpose is to give you little windows through which to interact with the world and the characters more and I always found myself enjoying these little vignettes as they appeared.

The visuals, by Scott Benson, are breathtaking and gorgeous. Night in the Woods is easily one of the best looking games I’ve ever played with a nice crisp almost storybook art style. The game continues to introduce beautiful visuals and settings throughout its run that constantly delight and surprise. The game is full of simply beautiful colour schemes that perfectly capture the feelings of autumn in which the game is set.

And much could be said about the music, by Alec Holowka, as it is hands down one of the best soundtracks of the year. Each track is beautiful on its own but together paints a loving atmosphere that sways between nostalgic and melancholic, often in the same composition. Even now I’m listening to it as I type this, completely enraptured by the songs. Some of my favourite tracks include Cloud Vacation (from the recent Weird Autumn Edition update), Title, Batter Up, Knife Fight, Harfest, Mallard’s Tomb, Astral Alley, Microfiche, Cycles I, Cycles II, Finding Bea, Proximity, Snow and more. Perhaps my all-time favourite though is End Credits, which never fails to make me tear up.

Of course the heart of the game is its characters, their struggles and their lives. The writing in the game is phenomenal both in the larger narrative, themes and metaphors sense, but also in the dialogue, the beat by beat moments. Never before has a game felt so in tune with me. I’d find myself laughing out loud one moment, only to find myself tearing up in the next — sometimes even in the same scene. The game deftly handles its themes and tones exquisitely and moves between them with grace and fluidity. It’s honestly hard to believe that this is the first major game for lead writers Benson and Hockenberry as their writing shows a level of skill and aptitude that is often missing from most games narratives.

The characters and writing are perhaps the most human I’ve ever seen in a game before, with a narrative that gaming at large has sorely been needing. It’s hard to say it any other way, but Night in the Woods is entirely unique with some of the best, most human and honest writing I’ve seen. It deals with so many huge topics like mental illness, economic struggles, queerness, the horrors of capitalism and damage left in its wake, with the utmost care and tenderness and realism. It is perhaps the most fully realized and honest depiction of mental illness in games I have ever seen. By the end of the game, the characters stick with you. And not just the primary cast, but the secondary characters as well. The game pulls you into their lives and their stories and their personalities, and before you even know it you’ve fallen in love with them. A few months ago as I showed this game to one of my close friends, I was constantly finding myself telling her “Oh I love this character” or “I love him” and so on, and it was true. Soon enough I was saying it about pretty much every character they were coming across, and I meant it. They’re beautifully human, flawed, loveable characters and I found pieces of myself reflected in so many of them.

Spending time in this game’s world, hanging out with its characters… I feel like a broken record at this point, but it just spoke so intensely to my heart. I was invested in all of it and just wanted to spend more time with them, wanted to hangout more, wanted to get to know even more of the characters as intimately as you do with core cast. But unfortunately, like every story, it has to end at some point.