Fast, challenging Metroidvania gameplay combined with a heartfelt story
Tales of Kenzera: Zau Review
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Loss is inevitable, and yet, knowing it doesn't make it any less difficult. Grief is almost guaranteed to touch your life – to touch my life. And it has probably already done that. That certainty—that we will all be touched by death—is part of the reason so much art is devoted to interrogating those feelings. For so long, video games have been a medium that, for all its death, dying, and many lives, hadn't quite unpacked the feeling of sadness. There was little reason to: When you die in a video game, you always come back to life. The danger of death amounts to nothing more than a few hearts on a screen, a number. Often it is encouraged. The more kills you get, the better. Death is nothing to mourn there, but a celebration. But this is not a universal truth in all games. More and more video games are exploring what it means to lose – no longer just a level, but the more tangible, life-changing loss. There are games like Spiritfarer, a "cozy management game about dying", which deals with life after death; What Remains of Edith Finch, about the stories that remain; or A Mortician's Tale, which makes you walk hand in hand with death. You'll also find grief in games that aren't explicitly about loss; like I said, it's inevitable.
