Baby Steps Features One of the Most Meaningful Choices I've Ever Experienced in Video Games

I've dealt with some hard choices in gaming. Several of my selections in Life is Strange continue to trouble me. Ghost of Tsushima's final sequence led me to set down my controller for a good 10 minutes while I weighed my options. I am accountable for countless Krogan fatalities in Mass Effect that I would love to reverse. Not a single one of those situations measure up to what possibly is the hardest choice I've ever made in a video game — and it has to do with a enormous set of steps.

The Game Baby Steps, the newest release from the makers of Ape Out, is hardly a choice-driven game. Certainly not in the conventional way. You only need to navigate a expansive environment as the protagonist Nate, a onesie-wearing manchild who can barely stand on his unsteady feet. It looks like a setup for annoyance, but Baby Steps’s power lies in its deceptively impactful story that will catch you off guard when you least anticipate it. There’s no moment that demonstrates that power like one major choice that remains on my mind.

Alert: Spoilers

A bit of context is needed at this point. Baby Steps starts when Nate is transported from the basement of his home and into a fantasy world. He immediately finds that walking through it is a struggle, as a long time spent as a inactive individual have weakened his muscles. The humorous physicality of it all comes from users guiding Nate one step at a time, trying to keep his ragdoll body standing.

The protagonist needs aid, but he has difficulty expressing that to other characters. During his adventure, he encounters a group of unusual individuals in the world who all offer to give him a hand. A self-assured trekker tries to give Nate a navigation aid, but he awkwardly refuses in the game’s most hilarious scene. When he falls into an unavoidable hole and is offered a ladder, he strives to appear nonchalant like he requires no assistance and truly prefers to be confined in the cavity. As the plot unfolds, you see numerous annoying scenarios where Nate makes life harder for himself because he’s not confident enough to receive help.

The Ultimate Choice

This culminates in Baby Steps game’s one true moment of decision. As Nate nears the end his adventure, he realizes that he must climb to the top of a snowy mountain. The unofficial caretaker of the world (who Nate has desperately tried to duck up to this point) appears to tell him that there are two ways up. If he’s ready for a test, he can choose a very lengthy and hazardous route dubbed The Challenge. It is the most daunting obstacle Baby Steps game includes; taking it seems inadvisable to anyone.

But there’s a alternative choice: He can just walk up a enormous coiled steps as an alternative and arrive at the peak in just moments. The sole condition? He’ll have to refer to the caretaker “Master” from now on if he opts for the effortless way.

A Difficult Selection

I am completely earnest when I say that this is an agonizing choice in the game's narrative. It’s every one of Nate's doubts about himself coming to a head in one absurd moment. Part of Nate’s journey is focused on the fact that he’s insecure of his physical appearance and manhood. Each instance he sees that handsome trekker, it’s a difficult memory of everything he’s not. Undertaking The Challenge could be a time where he can demonstrate that he’s as competent as his imagined opponent, but that path is likely laden with more embarrassing pratfalls. Is it worth struggling just to prove a point?

The staircase, on the contrary, offer Nate an additional crucial instance to choose whether to take assistance or not. The user doesn't get to decide in whether or not they reject navigation help, but they can decide to give Nate a break and take the stairs. It should be an simple decision, but Baby Steps game is exceptionally cunning about causing suspicion each time you find a gift horse. The game world contains design traps that change a secure way into a setback suddenly. Is the staircase one more trick? Will Nate get at the peak just to be disappointed by a final joke? And more troubling, is he prepared to be humiliated another time by being forced to call a strange individual as Master?

No Right or Wrong

The brilliance of that instant is that there’s no right or wrong answer. Each path results in a genuine moment of personal growth and therapeutic resolution for Nate. If you decide to take on The Challenge, it’s an existential win. Nate finally gets a chance to prove that he’s as competent as everyone else, willingly taking on a challenging way rather than struggling through one that he has no choice but to follow. It’s difficult, and maybe ill-advised, but it’s the dose of confidence that he craves.

But there’s no shame in the staircase either. To choose that path is to finally allow Nate to receive assistance. And when he does, he realizes that there’s no real catch awaiting him. The staircase is not a trick. They continue for a while, but they’re simple to climb and he won't slip completely down if he trips. It’s a straightforward ascent after hours of struggle. Partway through, he even has a chat with the trekker who has, naturally, chosen to take The Challenge. He tries to play it cool, but you can see that he’s fatigued, subtly ruing the needless difficulty. By the time Nate arrives at the peak and has to pay his debt, addressing his new Master, the deal hardly seems so unpleasant. Who has time to be embarrassed by this freak?

My Experience

When I played, I chose the staircase. Part of me just {wanted to call