The Game Baby Steps Presents One of the Most Impactful Choices I've Ever Faced in a Game

I've dealt with some challenging choices in interactive entertainment. Certain choices I made in Life is Strange series remain on my mind. Ghost of Tsushima concluding moments prompted me to set down my controller for around ten minutes while I weighed my choices. I am accountable for so many Krogan deaths in the Mass Effect series that I wish I could undo. Not a single one of those situations measure up to what could be the toughest selection I’ve had to make in a video game — and it has to do with a giant staircase.

Baby Steps, the recent title from the developers of Ape Out, is hardly a decision-focused experience. Definitely not in typical gaming terms. You simply have to navigate a vast game world as the main character Nate, a onesie-wearing manchild who can hardly stay upright on his wobbly legs. It looks like a setup for annoyance, but Baby Steps’s power lies in its surprisingly deep narrative that will surprise you when you’re least expecting it. There’s not a single instance that exemplifies that strength like one major choice that I can’t stop thinking about.

Alert: Spoilers

Some scene setting is needed at this point. Baby Steps game begins as Nate is transported from the basement of his home and into a fictional universe. He quickly discovers that moving around in it is a challenge, as a lifetime spent as a inactive individual have deteriorated his physical condition. The physical comedy of it all comes from users guiding Nate step by step, trying to keep his ragdoll body standing.

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 everyone tries to assist him. A self-assured trekker attempts to offer Nate a guide, but he uncomfortably rejects in the game’s best laugh-out-loud moment. When he plunges into an inescapable pit and is offered a ladder, he tries to play it off like he requires no assistance and genuinely desires to be trapped in the pit. During the narrative, you see numerous annoying scenarios where Nate complicates his own situation because he’s not confident enough to receive help.

The Defining Decision

This culminates in Baby Steps’s one true moment of choice. As Nate approaches the conclusion his quest, he realizes that he must climb to the top of a frosty elevation. The de facto groundskeeper of the world (who Nate has desperately tried to duck up to this point) appears to inform him that there are two paths upward. If he’s prepared for difficulty, he can opt for a particularly extended and dangerous hiking trail dubbed The Manbreaker. It is the most daunting obstacle Baby Steps game provides; taking it seems inadvisable to any person.

But there’s a second option: He can merely climb a gigantic spiral staircase instead and arrive at the peak in a few minutes. The single stipulation? He’ll have to call the groundskeeper “Lord” from now on if he opts for the effortless way.

An Agonizing Decision

I am very serious when I say that this is an painful decision in context. It’s the totality of Nate's self-consciousness about himself culminating in a particularly bizarre situation. An element of Nate's story is centered around the fact that he’s self-conscious of his body and his masculinity. Each instance he sees that handsome trekker, it’s a difficult memory of all he lacks. Attempting The Obstacle could be a moment where he can prove that he’s as capable as his imagined opponent, but that road is bound to be laden with more humiliating failures. Is it justified suffering just to prove a point?

The stairs, on the flip side, give Nate another big moment to decide between receiving aid or refusing it. The user doesn't get to decide in about they reject navigation help, but they can opt to allow Nate some relief and take the stairs. It ought to be an easy choice, but Baby Steps is devilishly clever about making you feel paranoid each time you see a simple solution. The game world contains intentional pitfalls that transform an easy path into a obstacle instantly. Is the staircase yet another trap? Could Nate reach all the way to the top just to be disappointed by a final joke? And more troubling, is he prepared to be humiliated once again by being made to address a strange individual as Master?

No Perfect Choice

The brilliance of that instant is that there’s no perfect selection. Either one results in a real situation of protagonist evolution and therapeutic resolution for Nate. If you opt to attempt The Challenge, it’s an existential win. Nate at last receives a moment to show that he’s as able as others, voluntarily accepting a challenging way rather than enduring one that he has no choice but to follow. It’s difficult, and perhaps unwise, but it’s the bit of empowerment that he needs.

But there’s no shame in the steps either. To choose that path is to finally allow Nate to accept help. And when he does so, he finds that there’s no hidden trick awaiting him. The stairs aren’t a prank. They go on for a long time, but they’re simple to climb and he doesn’t slide completely down if he falls. It’s a easy journey after hours of struggle. Midway through, he even has a chat with the outdoorsman who has, of course, opted for The Obstacle. He tries to play it cool, but you can tell that he’s exhausted, quietly regretting the needless difficulty. By the time Nate arrives at the peak and has to fulfill his obligation, calling the character Lord, the deal hardly seems so bad. Who has time to be embarrassed by this strange individual?

My Choice

During my game, I chose the staircase. A portion of my thinking just {wanted to call