Baby Steps Presents One of the Most Significant Decisions I've Ever Encountered in Gaming

I've encountered some difficult decisions in gaming. Certain choices I made in Life is Strange remain on my mind. Ghost of Tsushima ending section made me pause the game for around ten minutes while I weighed my options. I am accountable for so many Krogan fatalities in Mass Effect that I would love to reverse. None of those moments compare to what possibly is the hardest choice I've faced in interactive media — and it concerns a enormous set of steps.

Baby Steps, the latest game from the creators of Ape Out, is not really a decision-focused experience. Definitely not in any traditional sense. You simply have to walk around a expansive environment as the main character Nate, a adult in a onesie who can barely stand on his unsteady feet. It looks like an exercise in frustration, but Baby Steps’s appeal is in its unexpectedly meaningful plot that will surprise you when you least anticipate it. There’s no situation that demonstrates that power like a pivotal decision that I keep reflecting on.

Note: Spoilers Ahead

Some scene setting is necessary here. Baby Steps game begins as the protagonist is suddenly taken from the basement of his home and into a fantasy world. He immediately finds that walking through it is a struggle, as years spent as a inactive individual have atrophied his limbs. The slapstick elements of it all arises from players controlling Nate one step at a time, trying to maintain his balance.

Nate needs help, but he has trouble voicing that to others. During his adventure, he encounters a cast of eccentric characters in the world who everyone tries to help him out. A composed outdoorsman seeks to provide Nate a map, but he uncomfortably rejects in the game’s most hilarious scene. When he drops into an unavoidable hole and is given a way out, he tries to play it off like he can manage alone and actually wants to be confined in the cavity. Throughout the story, you experience no shortage of irritating episodes where Nate creates additional difficulties because he’s too insecure to accept any assistance.

The Pivotal Moment

Everything builds up in Baby Steps game’s key situation of selection. As Nate nears the end his quest, he finds that he must climb to the top of a snow-capped peak. The default guardian of the world (who Nate has desperately tried to duck up to this point) comes to inform him that there are two paths upward. If he’s up for a challenge, he can take an extremely long and dangerous hiking trail dubbed The Manbreaker. It is the most daunting obstacle Baby Steps game has to offer; taking it seems inadvisable to any human.

But there’s a second option: He can merely climb a gigantic spiral staircase instead and reach the summit in a short time. The only caveat? He’ll have to refer to the caretaker “Sir” from now on if he takes the easy route.

A Painful Choice

I am very serious when I say that this is an agonizing choice in the game's narrative. It’s the totality of Nate's self-consciousness about himself reaching a climax in one absurd moment. Part of Nate’s journey is centered around the reality that he’s self-conscious of his body and his masculinity. Each instance he sees that dashing hiker, it’s a difficult memory of all he lacks. Attempting The Manbreaker could be a time where he can prove that he’s as competent as his one-sided rival, but that route is sure to be filled with more humiliating failures. Does it merit striving just to make a statement?

The steps, on the contrary, provide Nate with another significant opportunity to choose whether to take assistance or not. The gamer cannot choose in whether or not they reject navigation help, but they can decide to provide Nate with respite and choose the staircase. It ought to be an easy choice, but Baby Steps game is remarkably shrewd about making you feel paranoid anytime you encounter an easy option. The world is filled with design traps that transform an easy path into a setback on a dime. Is the staircase one more trick? Could Nate reach to the very summit just to be fooled by some last-second gag? And more concerning, is he willing to be emasculated yet again by being compelled to refer to some weirdo Lord?

No Right or Wrong

The brilliance of that instant is that there’s no right or wrong answer. Both options brings about a genuine moment of protagonist evolution and catharsis for Nate. If you choose to tackle The Challenge, it’s an philosophical victory. Nate finally gets a chance to prove that he’s as capable as others, consciously choosing a difficult route rather than struggling through one that he has no alternative but to take. It’s hard, and possibly risky, but it’s the moment of strength that he needs.

But there’s no shame in the stairs too. To select that route is to finally allow Nate to accept help. And when he does so, he realizes that there’s no hidden trick waiting 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 stumbles. It’s a straightforward ascent after lengthy difficulty. Partway through, he even has a conversation with the trekker who has, of course, opted for The Obstacle. He strives to appear composed, but you can see that he’s fatigued, silently lamenting the pointless struggle. By the time Nate arrives at the peak and has to fulfill his obligation, hailing his new Lord, the deal hardly seems so bad. Who has energy for shame by this odd character?

My Experience

In my playthrough, I selected the steps. Part of me just {wanted to call