Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons

[BasementShaxx]

I first became aware of Brothers when screenshots began to emerge, and I was stunned to learn these colourful vistas, fairytale villages and distinctly Norwegian trolls were coming from the people who brought us The Darkness, Escape From Butcher Bay, and Syndicate. The concept of controlling two characters at the same time piqued my interest and I snapped this up when it became available on PS3.

I was immediately struck by the game's refusal to use dialogue to tell a story, relying instead on the gameplay itself. Controlling both brothers at the same time meant I formed a tighter bond with the pair than if one had been ai controlled, or if you had to switch between them. Having little brother controlled by the right stick was a stroke of genius, as for the vast majority of people controlling the movement of a character feels natural on the left stick and alien on the right one. This made little brother's movements clumsy compared to his sibling, and this makes the end of the game even more impactful.

The game is full of some beautiful visual moments, such as the hang-glider sequence and the boat trip through the frozen lake, as well as some haunting and disturbing areas like the valley of dead giants. However it's through the gameplay that the real story is told, the bond between the brothers is cemented not through cutscenes or clever dialogue, but through the controller. Not many games can reduce a grown man to tears through the act of pulling a trigger on a controller, but this one certainly did.

[Scrustle]

As soon as I first heard about Brothers, it immediately caught my attention. As a big fan of their rendition of The Darkness, I usually keep an eye on Starbreeze to see what they're up to. But when they first showed Brothers, it was clear it was something drastically different from what they usually do. I could see it being something they could do well though.

When I finally got my hands on the game, I was not disappointed with what the studio had accomplished. The gameplay and control method was something very unusual, with its "single player co-op" style, and it took a little getting used to. But it was used in a way that really took advantage of the mechanic. Although a lot of the puzzles weren't particularly complex to work out, they challenge you to think in a different way to how you usually do with games, and to learn how to use the controller in a completely new way, that eventually became pretty intuitive to me towards the end. You have to enter a mindset of being able to multitask with your hands, as if they are two separate minds controlling the characters, instead of just the one.

Another thing that struck me about the game when I first played it was how stunning the art direction is. This game may not have the most highly detailed graphics out there, but it uses what it has to create a mood and a very rich atmosphere. The way it changes through the game is also masterfully done. It first starts off with a very idyllic and enchanting village, which feels distinctly and obviously Scandinavian. But as the game goes on, it gradually gets far darker and foreboding, giving a real sense of fear and uncertainty. Like you are really venturing off in to lands that no one has seen for hundreds of years, full of countless unimaginable and unseen terrors. The darkness and fear also feels very personal too, as you see various characters throughout the game. Like the man who tries to hang himself, and the hallucination section of the younger brother, showing his feelings of guilt and remorse remembering his mother's death.

But the real genius of this game comes near the end, where it marries these two things together. In a time where a lot of developers are exploring how to properly tell stories within games, Brothers shows how this can be done in a way that is unique to the medium, and benefits greatly from it. In a way that does not sacrifice gameplay for story, or vice versa. Instead, they are one and the same.

Near the end, when the older brother dies, making you have to dig his grave and bury him adds real weight to the moment. It's heart-wrenching having gone through the long journey together, the player learning and growing with these characters through learning the controls and guiding them. Now you have to literally bury one, making you physically go through that process yourself. Then there's the moment later on, where the younger brother has almost made his way back home by himself, but finds he is blocked by a large stretch of deep water that he can't swim across alone. It took me a while to work out how to get past this obstacle, but when I did it felt like a true revelation, where my thinking towards solving the gameplay problem was also a huge story moment too. That moment when I realised how you had to use the older brother's interaction button, even though he was gone, was at the same time the moment the younger brother was able to overcome his fears and draw upon the strength his brother gave him in their journey together. It was a moment unlike anything else I've experienced in any game, yet something that felt so perfectly right for what games are. A moment of pure design and narrative genius.

Although it's not technically an indie game, Brothers to me has become equal to the greatest of them. Along with Braid and Fez, it's become one of my favourite games in that space, and will hopefully become an inspiration to the entire medium of games in the future for what it has shown is possible.

There's one last thing I'd like to add. A lot of people like to compare this game to Journey, and while there certainly are similarities, the game felt far more evocative of the works of Team Ico to me. The story is very minimalist, with it focusing around two closely connected characters with no discernable dialogue through the entire experience. But I felt like it did even these things in a way far more similar to Team Ico than Journey. It also shares that lonely and mysterious feeling that the Ico games have. I'd certainly recommend to anyone tired of waiting for The Last Guardian to check out Brothers in the meantime.

[Alex79]

I re-read what I'd written just after finishing the game - I'm just going to repost that since I feel exactly the same still.



I just finished this. I played it mostly last night, and the final twenty minutes or so just now. I wish I'd played it in one sitting though, but even so, I loved loved loved it. It's easily one of my favourite games I've ever played. I loved the art style (huge fan of the first two Fable games), and I'll go out on a limb and say I think it's one of the prettiest games on the PS3. I think the whole thing about the game is whether you can connect to the characters or not, because there's not really much of a story to speak of, and the gameplay elements are simple at best. There wasn't one puzzle in the game that made me think. The solutions were there right in front of you every single time, but it was the way you did them and the cooperative problem solving that I really enjoyed. Every puzzle, every interaction with the scenery or other characters along the way was utterly charming. And I did connect to the characters. Despite the title, as I played through the game I think I projected myself and my son to the two characters, and it felt like we'd gone on an adventure together. There was so much that this game did right, so many things that were fun to do, the hand-gliding, the rope swinging, the goats, the running around in the ball near the end (trying to avoid spoilers) - all these things were super fun, and lasted exactly the right amount of time. The game may have been short, but every single second of it was a pure pleasure to play. There wasn't one part of this game that I didn't enjoy, and I wouldn't hesitate recommending it to anyone. Yeah I'm going to say it - my game of the year.

[Xavier Desmond]

I absolutely adore this game, which for me came out of nowhere as I'd not heard too much about other than passing mentions on a couple of podcasts.

I think a big reason I connected with the game was that it was the story of two brothers. A lot of the best story driven games of recent years have been based around father/daughter relationships. Although I love the stories of the Walking Dead and The Last Of Us I haven't got a daughter so it requires a certain leap of imagination to connect with them. However, I do have a brother who is a couple of years older than me and so I instantly connected with the characters.

Despite the fact there is no dialogue and the story is told with quite broad brushstrokes the developers managed to capture the feeling of having a brother of a similar age in quite a profound way and in a way I think is quite unique. The whole game I found incredibly moving and an experience I'll never forget.

[NokkonWud]

Just finished Brothers in one go and I have to echo some of the voices here by saying it's fantastic. The art style is beautiful: it clearly isn't 'cutting edge', but some of the atmospheric effects applied to create a depth of field are wonderful. Music, great: I'm just listening to the title screen as I type this and I know I'm going to be downloading the soundtrack imminently.

I found the whole two character, one player mechanic was interesting both from a gameplay perspective, and also in connecting me to the game's themes. None of the puzzles were that challenging, but that helped to keep the pace of the game up and allowed me to explore the environment more without getting bored or frustrated.

Spoiler: show

The tone of the game got me from the start. I was concerned at the opening, as it was a bit cheesy showing the mother dying in the opening moments. Yet throughout there was a constant sense of melancholy, that this was a world resigned to death and pain, and I found myself really connecting with and rooting for the brothers by the end. I didn't cry, but the game got to me in the way that the best stories do. Giving the little brother the ability to use the big brother's action button at the end was really clever; up to that point it really did feel like losing a limb after a few hours of wielding both sticks.

The visual story-telling throughout was superb too. It's a linear game, but even so I always felt I was moving where I wanted to go, rather than being forced down a defined path. The visual queues reminded me a lot of Bioshock; little vignettes that aren't fully explained, allowing you to draw your own conclusions.

Just a really impressive piece of work, and easily up there with the Last of Us and Bioshock: Infinite in the mature story-telling stakes of 2013.

[NokkonWud]

Just finished this. In pieces. Thoughts to follow once I've stopped crying.

EDIT: So. This game is a beautiful experience and everyone should play it.

The puzzles are easy but I feel like that's to the game's benefit - they're simple enough to figure out that they become small moments of achievement rather than serious obstacles, and are often quite visually striking while they do it (the rope-swinging section putting a ridiculous smile on my face). I like how the slightly mindbendy control scheme made the puzzles more challenging without being overly complex or frustrating, because in a game like this (ditto something like Journey) the momentum of the trip you're taking is the whole point, and to put significant roadblocks in the way of that would kill a lot of the joy to be found in this game. Besides, it's not your journey, it's theirs - so while the puzzles might not be that challenging for the player, I certainly got a kick out of watching the boys "figure it out".

The game does a good job of making you feel responsible for the boys - when the younger brother floundered in the water, I saved him because I wanted to, not just because I had to - and while there was no dialogue, there was really no need. The relationship between the two brothers

Spoiler: show

not to mention the themes that wrap up the game - including the final moment where the younger brother deals with his fear of the water

has the kind of universality that makes the best fairy tales, with an emotional impact that could only ever really have been delivered through this medium, and that makes me incredibly happy.

[Todinho]

I like this game,it's not a bad game and it does some unique things.That pretty much sums it up my feelings on Brothers a game I really wished I had heard nothing about before playing it,unfortunally the buzz around it had become so big that I was going to be disapointed no matter what,that being said I still liked what was there especially when it comes to the enviroments that looked great and conveyed perfectly the feeling of each moment of the journey,I especially liked the little optional interactions you could have

Spoiler: show

especially one where you can save a man from comiting suicide

that really helped bring this world to life.The control scheme is also very unique and it's a really clever way of uniting story and gameplay but unfortunally it never was something more than a clever use of control for me and it didnt impact me later on as I imagine it did lots of people.
The story was really well done despite having no dialogue,an issue I had strangely enough was that i felt the game too much cutscenes that took away a bit from the game,and this is from someone who plays MGS games so I dont know why this bothered me here maybe it's because of the control scheme and how the gameplay plays into the story.While it didnt drove me to tears I still liked the ending and found it really well done,and that is the thing everything in this game is good and tells me I should like it more but I just didnt make that connection not even after replaying it with my sister,this is still a great game it's just one I wish I found as special as everybody else.

[Roy42]

Spoiler: show

The most powerful moment of Brothers, to me, wasn't when Little Brother was on the final leg of the journey, conquered his fear of water and climbed up ledges he needed Big Brother for at the start, but right after Big Brother had died. When Little Brother has to bury Big Brother, trying to use Big Brother's action button just makes Little Brother stand still and sob. At that point more than ever does it really settle that the brothers were truly family, and that for Little Brother to lose Big Brother was to lose a part of himself.

By this point, the brothers have been on a long journey, neither their bodies nor minds given any decent rest, set upon at all sides by humans, animals, trolls and nature alike, and yet the hardest thing to do wasn't to lure trolls away, stay afloat in rapids, fly through a gorge with many thousands of metres between them and the ground, push the freshly slain corpses of giants out of the way, hide from invisible frost giants or kill Ice Queen Quelaag. It was to feel — not watch, but feel — the second of three family members die before him, feel once again that it was his fault, and still have to carry on, lest the final one perish as well, make Big Brother's death be for naught and triple the burden that he feels he has no choice but to shoulder.

With certain game journalists getting snarky about there not being ten games in 2013 that were better than Brothers and other game journalists being equally snarky in response, it was hard to avoid feeling like hype was going to influence my opinion for better or worse, but Brothers truly is a spectacular game that shows the power that interactivity can hold if wielded correctly; anyone who would claim to love games as a medium owes it to themselves to play it, because as it currently stands right now, you'd be hard pressed to find ten better games, that are in their most superior forms as games, than Brothers.

[FollowMyRuin]

It feels like it's been quite some time since I finished this game but i'll not remember "Brother's" for it's sense of agency that some others may have had when they were playing it. Similarly, the emotion in the storyline didn't really set my world on fire either, likely because constant rhetoric surrounding the title for tugging at your heart strings.

In hindsight, i'll remember this game for being the very best at eliciting a fantastic sense of scale in the journey you undertake. It's not a long game but I thinking back of the game I fondly recall key punchy events every 15 minutes from start to finish, trapping an ogre in a cage, posing as a tribal god to free the enslaved girl and hiding behind snowy statuettes from an invisible giant..."thing". Brothers is a sequence of carefully crafted independent fairy tale stories sewn together with great pacing.

[ratsoalbion]

And here, as promised, is the email review we received from Jonathan Walmsley:

This short, indie title came at me completely out of the blue. I read a Game Informer article on ‘games you might have missed’ and Brothers was at the top of the list. The brief synopsis intrigued me and on the spur of the moment I went ahead and purchased a copy on Xbox live and played it and finished it that same day. What I hadn’t expected going in was that this game was going to make such an impact on me that it would top my best games of the year list and become one of my favourite video games of all time.

I was hooked immediately by the opening scene of a small boy crouched over his mothers grave as he flashes back to the time he couldn’t save her from drowning, all accompanied by beautiful yet haunting music (a foreshadow of the end?). Shortly thereafter you’re then given control and in this area too Brothers stands out, mostly in a good way. Controlling both brothers concurrently with each assigned one stick and trigger took some getting used to at first but it was a new, novel way to play a game that I had experienced only once before in a brief mini-game in Ni No Kuni, but there it was far less successful. The controls are in fact the only real area I can criticise at all as even later on in the game after considerable practice the problem of criss-crossing the brothers in game and ones brain forgetting to catch up was still a bit of an issue when it came to traversal.

Nonetheless, considering the challenges of getting this unusual control scheme to work at all I’d say the developers did a fine job as it was continually used in new and interesting ways and never felt gimmicky but an integral part of the overall experience. What minor grievances I might have to do with some finicky aspects are made up for in the way it is symbolically used at the end of the game; more on that in a bit.

So with a novel start and novel controls I was already fairly impressed by what the game had to offer but it continued to impress right through to the end as well. The art style reminded me of Fables, and like that game it has a charming, storybook quality to it that is most appropriate to the game itself, for the journey you take the two brothers on is that of a fairytale, though of the Grimm not Disney variety. The plot itself is a very typical quest journey to retrieve the waters of life to save your father from illness with a very Scandinavian, Germanic tone to the fairy-tale trappings (the studio is Swedish after all). The two brothers have a series of adventures along the way from helping a benign troll rescue his wife to gliding through the air on a flying contraption to rescuing a ‘maiden’ from human sacrifice and many more in between.

It is the fact that the journey does encompass new environs and characters at a steady and pitch-perfect pace that is so impressive in gaming terms as it compels the player to keep pushing on to discover the new experience just round the fantastical corner thus strengthening the sense of interactivity via discovery. The game also revels in its environments providing benches on which to sit and rest and admire the wondrous landscapes allowing the player to breath in the fantastical world that little bit more. In terms of actual gameplay it never lets up in offering you new ways to utilise the two brothers working together in various puzzles and sequences that though simple and relatively straightforward mean that the game remains fresh throughout.

Though the very beginning is mellow the story continues at a rather whimsical beat but is punctuated by those quieter, reflective moments as each brother has a vision/memory moment with the overall tone gradually becoming more sombre again as you reach the end. These smaller character moments really stand out as does the very well realised familial relationship between the two brothers.

Indeed, the characters themselves, despite speaking gibberish, still manage to become more than video game avatars and feel like real people and part of this is down to the opening village sequences were the player can interact with various elements of the environment with both brothers, the elder showing his maturity, the younger his childish playfulness. These moments are completely skippable but the fact it is left up to the player to discover them makes the characterisation all the more stronger and memorable for it. There are also several smaller story moments that lie off the beaten track throughout the journey the most notable of all being one revolving around a man about to hang himself after his wife and child have died in a fire. You as the player have the choice: (though it is never explicitly stated by the game) to either save the hanging man or let him self-willingly strangle to death. It’s a poignant, powerful moment that is completely optional and that not only makes the world feel more alive and real but reinforces this idea of interactivity and self-discovery being so important to creating memorable narrative experiences within video games.

The sound design, like the visuals, is also very strong, particularly the soundtrack which has a very distinct, Scandinavian vibe to it and fits the atmosphere perfectly, none more so than the choral stuff which is haunting in its melody and tone. It is used to great affect at the end of the game which in itself is worthy of extensive review. The plot takes a twist after the ‘maiden’ you saved earlier turns out to be a horrific spider creature in disguise and after a brief boss battle said spider inflicts a killing blow upon the elder brother whilst in her own death throes. It’s a moment of truly unexpected shock but thankfully the tree of life with its life-giving water is nearby and you continue on alone as the younger brother to retrieve it.

Though I didn’t want to believe it as I was racing up the tree, the music pounding in urgency, I had this unsettling feeling that things were not going to get better. The overall increasingly sombre tone probably tipped me off, but just because I was anticipating a not so happy ending didn’t make any difference in how I reacted. Indeed, you are too late to save the brother and the dark reality of the matter is brought home as the younger begins to sob uncontrollably over his sibling’s lifeless body. It’s already a moving, emotional scene but the following gameplay sequence where you have to bury the brother hit me even harder. In no game have I ever had to bury any character, never mind one I had grown attached to over the course of the game.

After a brief, slightly uplifting cutscene where the younger brother heads home on the back of a flying, feathery bird creature it is dark and raining as you get home. As I made my way along the shore my instincts were to move the left stick (the older brother stick) as well but immediately I felt that loss in the very controls themselves. It’s this moment of impactful narrative emotion being delivered via gameplay mechanics which makes Brothers for me so unique. Indeed this is used to full effect by the game when the younger brother, faced by a strip of water, must find a way to cross. Previously the little brother had clung to the older being unable to swim himself but now it is up to him alone to carry on.

As the player I wasn’t sure what to do at first and then it dawned on me: I had to press both triggers and essentially harness the power of the brother’s memory to swim cross. Symbolically, thematically and mechanically it’s a stroke of genius and more such moments follow as the little brother must ‘channel’ the spirit of his older brother to carry on and accomplish alone what the two had previously accomplished together. It’s these uplifting, impactful moments most of all which are the reason Brothers was my number one game of last year as it utilises the unique interactive nature of video games to give the narrative even greater emotional and symbolic resonance.

With the final interactive moments passed the final scene is a cutscene with the brother and father (now saved) standing over the graves of both mother and sibling and the father collapsing in grief as the boy looks stoically on with that haunting music suffusing the scene with even greater sadness. It was here most of all that I really got emotional, the full weight of the loss, with the memory of the journey after the quest had been ‘achieved’ but at a great cost being present that I began to cry quite a lot to say the least. Brothers is one of only two games to ever make me cry (the other being the end of Half-life Ep 2 just the one time) and it managed to achieve this in just 3-4 hours, making it even more noteworthy. It crams so much into such a short space and yet uses every ounce of its potential to full effect as a result. It’s a video game that doesn’t overly rely on cutscenes to tell its impactful story but rather uses the unique interactive nature of video games to deliver a particularly story-driven, emotional effect that has greater resonance as a result and isn’t found in other more passive mediums, and what an effect it was!

[ratsoalbion]

Some interviews of interest:

[Tleprie]

Just completed this game tonight. I figured I'd share my thoughts on it before listening to the episode.

First the things that I liked:
The setting and style of the game was really good, I loved the fairy tale world, and liked that it took tropes and inspiration from various stories, but still made the whole world feel cohesive. Next, the controls. I am glad that they were as simple as they were, only using one stick and trigger per brother. I liked the variety of puzzles that were in the game with such simple controls.
The music was very good throughout, although no tracks stuck with me after completing the game.

Now for some of my dislikes:
First a personal gripe: The woods and graveyard were probably my favorite part, and I thought that it ended too soon! I loved the mechanic of the older brother having to protect the younger with the fire. It reminded me a bit of playing co-op Gears of War, fending off the krill with the spotlights.
Next up, there were far too few moments that felt urgent. The whole premise of the game is that the brothers' father is dying, surely they should be trying to go as quick as they can, not wasting time sitting on benches. I can understand them taking a break, especially after the more physically demanding challenges, but the way they sit there just rubbed me the wrong way, and I only sat at a few of the benches. Moving on with my point on urgency, I felt that most of the puzzles were too forgiving, and too slow. It was rare that I had to quickly orient myself or figure out which brother I needed for a puzzle.
My final complaint is a minor one, annoying checkpoints. The moment that stands out for me is when the invisible giant is chasing you across a bridge. This is one of the few moments that actually felt urgent, and caused me to panic, mess up, and die a few times. Each death, however, required me to re-enter the house, and watch the giant rip the house away. This is a minor grievance, but I thought I'd mention it.

Finally, I'll share what I thought was the shining moment of the game. The brothers come across a man getting ready to hang himself. Everything about this scene was done well, in my opinion, and it captured the urgency that I wish was in the rest of the game. At first I tried using the older brother to lift the man so he could breathe, and wanted the younger brother to climb the tree to untie the noose. However I was still learning the controls, which caused me to panic and both brothers ended up trying to climb the tree. The older one got up, but I couldn't find a way to help the man. There was no way that I could see to retry the event, and even if there were, I wouldn't want to. I'd prefer to live with my choices, actions, and in-actions.

I'll probably listen to the episode in the next day or two, and if it sparks any new thoughts, I'll be sure to post them on the episode's post.