The Game That Will Destroy Your Soul – A Night in the Woods Analysis
There are many games out there that pack an emotional punch. When I say this, maybe you think of titles like Life Is Strange, The Last of Us, or the countless others that will tug at your heart strings and make you feel all weepy inside. However, there is only one game that will send you spiralling into an existential crisis when the credits finally roll. It’s a game that plays with ideas of free will, class struggle, and makes you think about life’s ultimate question: what should we do with our limited time here. The game I’m talking about, of course, is 2017’s indie masterpiece, Night In The Woods. By all metrics, Night in the Woods isn’t a horror game. There aren’t any crazy jump scares or terrifying creatures that send you running in fear, but lurking under the surface – if you look – is a tale even scarier than being chased down by a man in a hockey mask. It’s a tale that seeps existential dread into your soul at a primal level until you realize that there may be no escape. Much has changed since the game’s release, and we now live in a world of 10 second TikToks and fast paced Call of Duty’s that have only the most basic of commentaries about life, mainly bad guy bad and good guy good. So, we’re going to be revisiting the game to see how it has gotten better with age, why its topics and themes are more relevant now than ever, and why the sad story of the game’s development means we won’t ever see a sequel – even though we should.
The birth of possum springs
Night in the Woods is set in the small town of Possum Springs, a town inhabited by anthropomorphic creatures that are part animal and part human. We get to play as Mae, a young woman slash cat that has returned to Possum Springs after dropping out of college. She’s directionless, depressed, and dealing with how the town – and her friends – have changed in the time she’s been away. But before we get any deeper into the game itself, we first need to look at how Night in the Woods came to exist to understand the staggering achievement that it would become.
The game was firmly a product of the early 2010s and started life as a Kickstarter in October 2013. Night in the Woods was an indie game being developed almost entirely by a three-person team consisting of Alec Holowka, Scott Benson, and Bethany Hockenberry, so it was shocking when the Kickstarter was funded to a sum of over $50,000 in just 26 hours. Eventually, the Kickstarter would be funded 4 times over to the tune of $200,000, but needless to say, development ramped up quickly. In December 2013, a companion game called Longest Night was released to give fans a taste of what Night in the Woods would be. In December 2014, they would also release Constellations, yet another companion game that gave players more of an insight into the game’s world. Despite reaching astronomical amounts of funding, the trio of developers calling themselves Infinite Fall decided to keep their team small and not let feature creep become a problem. But in doing so, the game would take far longer than first thought, and was delayed until early 2017.
When it finally hit hard drives, Night in the Woods quickly gained popularity. Video game websites like IGN, GameSpot, and Destructoid gave the game 9 and 9.5 out of 10, and to this day Night in the Woods sits at an overall score of 88 out of 100 on Metacritic. That year, the game was nominated for Games for Best Impact and Best Indie Game at The Game Awards, and even won the Best Narrative award at the BAFTAs. Okay, so Night in the Woods was a great game in 2017, but what about now?
The narrative themes and true horror of Night in the Woods
Loading up the fancy new version of the game on PS5, I was struck by the oppressive vibe of dilapidated, small town Possum Springs. The businesses and buildings are run down, there’s not much to do except hang out with friends and work, and even then, the only work available is menial jobs in whatever shops happen to be open that day. Mae is returning home from college after dropping out, and she’s directionless and depressed with life. Like many people, I played Night in the Woods in 2017, back when I too felt like main character Mae; lost and confused by a big post-college world that slaps you hard in the face. The transition period between teenager and adult is an experience almost all of us have had in one way or another and can empathize with; when you just want to hang out with your friends but life comes calling, and one by one they decide to move on. Replaying Night in the Woods now, however, gives a more zoomed out picture that allows you to see the TRUE tragedies of Possum Springs.
Throughout the game’s narrative, for example, Mae interacts with the denizens of Possum Springs, two of which are her mother and father at home. At one point, after asking Mae many times why she dropped out of college, her mother snaps and shouts at Mae, telling her that she was supposed to be the first person in her family to finish college, get a good job, and escape Possum Springs. Of course, Mae is annoyed by the argument because she is young and lacking in life experience, but those who have a few years under their belts can understand her mother’s frustration; her daughter had a real chance at escaping the class struggle and achieving more for herself.
Conversations with Mae’s dad also flag up similar notions of class and wealth immobility in small towns. This can be seen in conversations where he tells Mae that he hates his job and going to work every day is making him miserable, but he has to go for the health insurance and to keep a roof over his head. And it’s in these subtle interactions that Night in the Woods horror starts to rear its ugly head.
At the beginning of Night in the Woods, Mae reunites with friends Bea, Greg and Angus, and the group find a severed arm. This sparks an overarching storyline that we’ll get to later, but suffice to say that it’s clear that the real horror isn’t what you’d expect. The group of friends also goes to a party, where Mae drinks too much and shows herself up in front of an old boyfriend. In case it isn’t clear, Mae isn’t a sanitized protagonist that we’re supposed to fall in love with; an anime girl that is oh so kawaii. No, Mae is a warts-and-all portrayal of real life characters. Let’s face it, we’ve all had that moment where we’ve drunk too much or said something ridiculous that continues to haunt us for decades, and that’s a big part of what Night in the Woods is about. Life isn’t clean or idyllic, it’s random and chaotic, and Night in the Woods does an amazing job of portraying that.
A sizable chunk of the middle of the game is spent wandering around Possum Springs and talking to the people (animals? whatever) that are going about their day. And because the mine recently shut down and the town is a backwater, going about their day means generally hanging out and doing nothing. Night in the Woods lets Mae explore the town every day, interacting with a vast cast of characters in differing locations, and each day you have to choose one of your friends to hang out with: Bea or Greg. Each hangout explores that character’s backstory more, forcing Mae on adventures that end with her going back home to sleep. All of this means that everything Night in the Woods has to offer can’t be explored in a single playthrough. That might sound pretty standard for a game with branching narratives, but because this is Night in the Woods we’re talking about, it goes much deeper than that. See, the game’s design actually reflects the existential dread of the onset of adulthood. Being able to only see one friend’s story to its conclusion each playthrough is a commentary on the branching paths of life; we make decisions and those decisions dictate how the path plays out, except in real life, there are no second playthroughs. And so the existential horror of Night in the Woods grows.
Greg and Angus are a couple who want to move towns for a better life. When Mae realizes this means they’ll be leaving her behind in Possum Springs, she becomes perturbed and agitated, having only just come home from college herself. Bea’s storyline deals with her mother’s death and having to take on the adult responsibilities of running her father’s store, as well as the emotional chaos that ensues events like these. All of this results in Mae yearning for things to be the way they were before she left. Greg and Angus aiming to leave makes her feel like a failure to launch, and Bea’s change in demeanor means she’s no longer the fun kid that Mae used to know. Mae clearly feels left behind in life, despite being barely out of her teens, but revisiting Night in the Woods with a more bird’s eye view, you realize that Mae is so wrapped up in naively clinging onto the past that she doesn’t understand that she’s not a failure. Life hits everyone and everyone must choose a path – just like in the game’s design. You – or Mae – can’t stay in a state of stasis, not changing, not moving.
One thing Night in the Woods was criticized for was its slow pacing, and this is a fact that cannot be ignored when playing the game. There are large swathes of the game, particularly in the middle section, where nothing seems to happen; the overarching story doesn’t progress and Night in the Woods seems listless. However, on revisit Possum Springs, you come to realize that this is a deliberate manifestation of Mae’s life. She herself is aimless, wandering the streets with no job while the others work or pursue daily tasks. Take, for example, the part in Greg’s storyline where he and Mae cause mischief and make a robot out of stolen goods. Afterwards, Greg says he hasn’t been doing any of these shenanigans while Mae was gone, showing how Mae shapes the world around her. It’s in these slow and quote unquote boring moments that Night in the Woods really shines. It might not be obvious in the moment, but this is when Possum Springs comes to life. It’s a run-down former mining town with not much going on, so when you’re playing as Mae, you’re experiencing a run down mining town with not much going on. Except, there is something going on. Remember the arm they found at the beginning of the game?
Themes of depression and mental health are rife in Night in the Woods, and Mae spends much of the game questioning her own sanity as she spirals and straddles the line between real life and delusion. Part of this delusion is thinking that someone is following her, which her friends take with a pinch of salt to begin with. She’s just seeing shadows, right? But it ends up being true, and links back to the severed arm from the beginning of the game. See, Mae and the gang encounter the individual stalking her, and decide to investigate further. This leads them to the old mine, where they find a cult of townsfolk who want to revive the town and get rid of the ne’er do wells, like the poor homeless guy who was living behind the church (that’s if you encountered him. Like many things in the game, you can completely miss his backstory altogether if you don’t explore). In the end, the team defeats the cult and life moves on, but it’s a strong message that shows how things can spiral out of control when people live in isolation and without the context of a wider world.
You would think that the shadow who pursues Mae would be the real horror in Night in the Woods. You’d be forgiven for thinking that the murderous cult of Possum Springs would be the real horror, too. But it isn’t. The real horror is the existential dread that grows more and more on Mae every day, as she comes to realize that that’s it. There’s nothing more in small town living once you’ve become burdened with adulthood. Her mother and father being stuck in jobs they hate, and being forced to grind 9 to 5 until retirement because they have to look after their family depicts the class struggle felt by many across the world. That creeping feeling as the childhood naivety of wanting to be an astronaut that slowly slips away as you realize your job in the Snack Falcon is probably as good as it’s going to get – that’s the real horror of Night in the Woods. All of these factors feed the cult, as they have time on their hands with no future prospects, the cult, like Mae, revels in nostalgia. They wistfully want to restore Possum Springs to its former glory. The true horror here being what the inability to move forward with your life can do to a person and community.
Night in the Woods 2 and the franchise’s legacy
According to one source, Night in the Woods sold just under 350,000 copies on Steam alone, which generated Infinite Fall around $5 million in revenue, and that doesn’t account for the Switch, PlayStation, and Xbox versions. So, for all intents and purposes, Night in the Woods was a smash hit, especially when you factor in that it was created by three people. Night in the Woods’s story also left us on somewhat of a cliffhanger regarding what happened to the cult – are they truly gone? Considering how successful the game was, most fans also want to find out more about what happened to Mae and her friends too. Did Greg and Angus move? Did Mae grow up and feel better? What happened to Bea? Adding to that, Night in the Woods’ world and cast of kooky characters is so charming that it seems like a waste to only use it in one game.
Our first barrier to a sequel happened Alec Holowka, one half of Infinite Fall, tragically passed away in 2019, less than two years from the game’s release. You might be tempted to think that at this point, a sequel would be off the cards because of Holowka’s drastic impact on shaping the game, but it wasn’t. In May 2023, a trailer for a follow-up game called Revenant Hill was released. Scott Benson, who worked on the original, was now leading a team by the name of The Glory Society who were working on the sequel. In the trailer, we don’t see characters from the original game, but the art style and world appear to be the same. So, as in games like Life Is Strange, Revenant Hill was likely a loose sequel that would have intersections with the original game’s cast at points. We’ll never know for sure, however, because in November 2023, just a few short months after the trailer dropped, the game was canceled.
Scott Benson put out a statement saying that the development of Revenant Hill had ceased development and that his new studio had suspended operations due to Benson being diagnosed with severe heart failure. Once again, under tragic circumstances, plans to further expand Night in the Woods’s world were scuppered – this time for good.
In a strange way, the rollercoaster story of Night in the Woods and its sequel’s development shines an even brighter light on Mae and Possum Springs. The events of the game being reflected in the real lives of the game’s creators adds a philosophical touch to the whole saga, adding credibility and authenticity to the Night in the Woods experience. Mae might not want things to change – none of us do – but life changes around us no matter whether we want it to or not. Bad events happen. Responsibilities happen. And before you know it, you’re just like Mae’s parents. And that’s what makes Night in the Woods such an important and impactful experience. You can, like I did the first time around, take things at face value and play a simple game about a cult in a small town. Or, you can take things a bit slower and realize that it was never about the cult or the disappearances or the boredom. The true horror of Night in the Woods was none of these things. The true horror of Night in the Woods is the existential dread of coming to terms with the realities of life, of the monotony of the 9 to 5 rat race, of the class struggle that keeps you in the small town you were never meant for, or of the amount of free will you have to actually change any of these things. Maybe the most you can hope for is to be like Mr Chazokov, standing on your roof, staring at the stares and wondering what’s out there.
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