Baby Steps Features Among the Most Impactful Choices I Have Ever Encountered in Gaming

I've faced some hard decisions in video games. Certain choices I made in Life is Strange series still haunt me. Ghost of Tsushima's ending section made me pause the game for around ten minutes while I considered my options. I am the cause of numerous Krogan deaths in Mass Effect that I regret deeply. Not a single one of those situations measure up to what could be the toughest selection I've faced in interactive media — and it involves a massive stairway.

Baby Steps, the recent title from the makers of Ape Out game, is not really a decision-focused experience. Definitely not in any traditional sense. You must walk around a sprawling open world as the main character Nate, a grown-up in childish attire who can struggle to remain on his wobbly legs. It looks like a setup for annoyance, but Baby Steps game’s power lies in its unexpectedly meaningful plot that will sneak up on you when you least anticipate it. There’s not a single instance that showcases that quality like one major choice that I keep reflecting on.

Spoiler Warning

Some scene setting is required here. Baby Steps game begins as Nate is magically whisked away from the basement of his home and into a magical realm. He quickly discovers that moving around in it is a difficulty, as a lifetime spent as a inactive individual have atrophied his limbs. The humorous physicality of it all stems from players controlling Nate one step at a time, trying to maintain his balance.

Nate needs help, but he has difficulty expressing that to others. As he progresses, he encounters a cast of eccentric characters in the world who each propose to assist him. A composed outdoorsman attempts to offer Nate a guide, but he clumsily declines in the game’s best laugh-out-loud moment. When he drops into an unavoidable hole and is given a way out, he attempts to act casual like he requires no assistance and genuinely desires to be trapped in the pit. During the narrative, you encounter plenty of frustrating vignettes where Nate makes life harder for himself because he’s not confident enough to take support.

The Defining Decision

Everything builds up in Baby Steps’s one true moment of selection. As Nate approaches the conclusion his quest, he finds that he must ascend of a snow-capped peak. The de facto groundskeeper of the world (who Nate has actively avoided up to this point) appears to let him know that there are two paths upward. If he’s prepared for difficulty, he can take an extremely long and risky path named The Manbreaker. It is the most daunting obstacle Baby Steps provides; taking it seems inadvisable to any human.

But there’s a alternative choice: He can merely climb a massive winding stairs instead and reach the summit in a few minutes. The sole condition? He’ll have to call the groundskeeper “Lord” from now on if he chooses the simple path.

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 unconfident of his physical appearance and manhood. Each instance he sees that impressive outdoorsman, it’s a difficult memory of everything he’s not. Taking on The Manbreaker could be a time where he can prove that he’s as competent as his one-sided rival, but that path is likely laden with more embarrassing pratfalls. Is it worth suffering just to prove a point?

The steps, on the flip side, provide Nate with another significant opportunity to either accept or reject help. The player has no choice in about they turn away a map, but they can opt to allow Nate some relief and choose the staircase. It should be an easy choice, but Baby Steps game is exceptionally cunning about making you feel paranoid whenever you encounter an easy option. The world is filled with design traps that turn a safe route into a setback instantly. Could the steps an additional deception? Will Nate get to the very summit just to be disappointed by a final joke? And more troubling, is he ready to be diminished another time by being forced to call a strange individual as Master?

No Right or Wrong

The beauty of that moment is that there’s no right or wrong answer. Each path brings about a real situation of character development and therapeutic resolution for Nate. If you opt to attempt The Manbreaker, it’s an existential win. Nate finally gets a opportunity to demonstrate that he’s as capable as others, consciously choosing a tough path rather than suffering through one that he has no option except to pursue. It’s difficult, and maybe ill-advised, but it’s the moment of strength that he needs.

But there’s no shame in the staircase too. To select that route is to eventually enable Nate to receive assistance. And when he accomplishes that, he realizes that there’s no hidden trick in store for him. The steps are not a joke. They continue for a while, but they’re simple to climb and he doesn’t slide to the bottom if he trips. It’s a straightforward ascent after extended challenges. Halfway up, he even has a discussion with the outdoorsman who has, of course, chosen to take The Challenge. He tries to play it cool, but you can tell that he’s exhausted, silently lamenting the needless difficulty. By the time Nate gets to the top and has to fulfill his obligation, calling the character Lord, the agreement barely appears so bad. Who has concern for humiliation by this strange individual?

My Choice

When I played, I chose the staircase. Some part of my reasoning just {wanted to call