The ambiguous thriller for a year of ambiguous thrills
I will never get over the ending ofInside.
Its in my brain forever, lingering; Ill never be the same.
But I should start at the beginning.
InInside, you control a little boy.
He wears a red shirt, like all the disposables fromStar Trek.
He wanders through a forest, a farm, a city.
Men chase him, if theyre men.
The setting changes, trending fantastical, clashing dreamy anachronism with maniac geometry.
You imagine our half-cyborg descendants, millennia hence, crafting an ancient myth about our modern world.
But the games gradual pace invites meditation.
Whats this boy doing?
(What if Ingmar Bergman inventedSuper Mario?)
Is the boy a refugee or a renegade?
An exterminating angel or the Devil himself?
(Note, again, that dark red shirt.)
Like Playdeads brilliant previous effort,Limbo,Insideis a game that invites interpretation.
UnlikeLimbo, there are no obvious clues: no mythic parallel, no clear-cut goal.
My interpretation ofInsideis personal yet cosmic, unlikely but accurate:Insideis about 2016.
This was a brutal year, haunted by death and politics.
These past 12 months felt like individual iron bars in a cell made of history.
It became a common refrain, on social media and casual conversation: Can this year justendalready?
Trapped, we moved forward, confident if nothing else in the normal flow of chronological time.
The boy moves forward, too.
What he finds is grotesque; well, what did we find, anyhow?
The final act ofInsideis somehow both morbidly pessimistic and grotesquely optimistic.
It could be a hilarious tragedy, or the most disgusting happy ending ever.
There is a moment, extremely late in the game, where you break through a final barrier.
Call it a wall, or call it Dec. 31.
By then, you no longer have any clear sense of where you have been going.
You dont even know what you are anymore.
Soon, 2016 will be over.
Like the boy, at long last, well be outside.
Read EWs full list of the 10 best videogames of 2016 here.
