You Should Play: Bugsnax

The older I get, the more I realize just how special video games are. I don’t want to claim you know that they are transcendent or always amazing or particularly intelligent a lot of the time. In fact, video games (especially the ones that have a budget attached to them), seem to be struggling a bit. Whether you want to blame rampant consumerism and the drive to increase profits, or whether you want to simply point at dev studios and go “you bad”, many people seem to fear for the future of the games industry in regards to how consumer and employee friendly it is. Without poking further into that den of vipers and hornets, I want to simply say – Bugsnax is a path forward.

There was a lot of talk on the internet about Bugsnax before it released. It was kind of an oddball; a strange thing to have as a seemingly frontline title for a new console generation. It was one of the things revealed alongside the PS5! But for all the joking, for all the “this game is dark and creepy and hides an eerie secret” sort of thing that accompanies smaller indie games with weird undercurrents, Bugsnax is a genuine treat.

I want to stress how genuine that is. Because it’s rare for me to find games that just electrify something in me, that capture the spark I had when I was young and I was playing games back then for the first time. The sense of wonder, imagination and joy I feel playing those rare games came through in Bugsnax.

It’s deceptively simple. A pastiche of Pokemon, Animal Crossing and some psychological thrillers, Bugsnax is intelligently written and compelling to explore and poke around in. Things react to you. Different Bugsnax have different reactions to different things. There’s a simple little day/night cycle. Nothing is particularly complex, but it all feels natural and fluid. The different sections of the map are small, but are big enough to have little nooks and crannies to poke around in, new rare Bugsnax to hunt down.

The gameplay is fun and earnest. I don’t know if you know the feeling, but do you ever just stop and explore a game world? Do you ever poke at things just to see what breaks, and what holds strong? Do you see what’s around the next corner immediately, or do you savour what’s in front of you in the moment? See, I haven’t had much time this year to do that. Which is one of my favourite things to do, when I find a good game. To live in it for a little while. To take some time out of my day to appreciate the work done by others to make this medium a magical one. Bugsnax‘s world, as I said, might not be huge or complex, but there’s more than enough there to put an earnest and happy smile on your face, and a wonder in your soul at the vivid imagination of the developers at Young Horses.

But it’s the writing that makes Bugsnax special. There’s a reality to these weird Grumpuses – these overexaggerated teddy bears with Simpsons-overbites become real people thanks to the excellent writing. Every single one of the characters has very human quirks, go through very human struggles, and can learn and become better people by the end of the story. Love is written particularly well in this game – it is very easy to become invested each characters attempts at romance, or their simple attempts at just learning what it means to be alive. Because it’s something we lose sight of all too easily, you know? What it means to just play and love an experience for itself, not relying on being part of some big budget franchise with references and tie-ins and spin-offs and everything.

I’m struggling with this piece not to descend into hyperbole. Because when you look at Bugsnax, with its ridiculous looking characters, its silly sounding plot, and overall strangeness, it’s very easy to dismiss it. It’s a small-budget oddity, something seemingly destined for big lore videos to be made on but for no-one to play. Which is a huge shame, because Bugsnax swells with wit, love and imagination. It’s the kind of game that games exist for. It might be a little on the short side and gets a tad repetitive if you go for 100% completion (that is, catching all the Bugsnax), but it is exactly the kind of the game that deserves to be played, and to inspire a new generation of game developers. It’s both for kids and adults; it’s cute enough that kids can romp around in it and interact with all the cute characters, but adults can enjoy what it is the cute characters really say and appreciate some of the underlying context of the game’s story.

I guess part of my feeling for Bugsnax comes from my exhaustion at the commercialisation of the arts. The frustration I feel as I see another promising development studio swallowed by a bigger fish, or a game series burgeoning with life and imagination not get the attention it needs. How is it that a game like New World, a massive, repetitive MMO made by Amazon, of all corporations, garnered such rave reviews, but development teams who make imaginative games are pushed off to the side? What happened to the Silent Hill 2 sized budget for teams? The exact kind of budget that lets a team make something great and polished, but with enough freedom to avoid corporate interference? It’s an exhausting problem, you know? Maybe you know. Maybe you don’t. Maybe I’m talking nonsense.

But Bugsnax is emblematic of promise and hope for the future of video games. Young Horses works a four day week with the same pay; they have respect for their players and their employees, it seems. I can only hope that one day the gargantuan monolith that is the microtransaction-fueled triple-A industry gives way to smaller games with passion and love visible in every frame of movement, every written line of dialogue, every press of a button. There might be more smaller imperfections visible because the corporations aren’t crunching their studios, but there’ll be a greater love for the medium present in the industry.

That’s it, then. Rant ended.

Oh wait. Bugsnax introduced me to Kero Kero Bonito, my new favourite band. That goes a long way 🙂