Inside’s arrival on PS Plus couldn’t have come at a better time
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It’s pretty hard, in general, to find a game that really makes me uncomfortable. There are plenty of horror games I’ve played that make me squirm at the moment, but it’s a rarity that something leaves me with an endless wave of a feeling that can only be described as ‘what the heck’. However, there is one title that comes back to me with that feeling more often than I’d like; the seed Insideand its ending that just won’t leave me alone.
Inside spoilers follow.
When Inside came out, I hadn’t played Playdead’s previous title Limbo at the time, though I was familiar enough with it to know more or less what to expect. Both games are puzzle platformers, with a silent young protagonist whose journey is as mysterious to them as it is to you.
The world of Inside is fascinating. There are clearly some fascist undertones in the world, with much of the masses apparently indoctrinated to follow…something. You yourself are forced to control select groups of the population, commanding them in ways that allow you to progress through the various puzzles the world throws at you. It is obviously a game of control and authoritarianism.
So where do you and the kid you play with come in? Your role is that of the controller (pardon the pun) leading the faceless boy into the unknown. The world gets a little more developed as you go along, but you never learn anything significant about how things got to be the way they are, or who the child is.
However, you discover one thing about him: his purpose. Which is, for reasons the game refuses to clarify, becoming part of what you might reductively call The Blob (or more specifically you’d call ‘a mass of human flesh and limbs’). For ease of discussion, we will stick with the former in the rest of this article.
The Blob is the boy, and the boy is The Blob, and you are the boy, all combined in a way that is very reminiscent of the incredibly meaty Society from 1989. As I mentioned earlier, I’ve played games that make me squirm. at the time. The interior is one of them, particularly during a section that shows too many dead and rotting pigs.
However, The Blob is what I have left to do this day. I often like to describe my gender as an amorphous, almost unknowable blur, which might be why I’m so fascinated by this intelligent, faceless creature. But its existence also strikes a guttural fear in me like few other things.
He clearly has desires, as we all do, the main one being freedom. The scientists have trapped him, you see, and you, as the boy, are, as revealed at the end, on a quest to free him. Why this is so, I do not know. Is The Blob controlling the boy, and in turn you as the player, to break free? Do scientists encourage you to do so? I can’t answer any of these questions, and that’s part of why The Blob is permanently etched in my brain (living rent free, I might add).
The first time I played it, I did it in one sitting, since it’s pretty short, and I almost think that’s part of the point: by the time I got to the point where you became one with The Blob, me and my partner, I was watching play, they were stunned. I started playing pretty late at night, and obviously finished even later, and I just didn’t know how to feel.
For me, that was mainly because there was apparently no solution for The Blob. You eventually escape the facility you were trapped in, but when you do manage to do so, you and The Blob find themselves on a shoreline with nowhere to go. The world, after all, only moves in two directions, left or right.
The ending implies freedom, but it doesn’t really offer it, not for The Blob, not for me or for you as players. We’re just stuck as the credits roll, doomed to be stuck in this place, maybe forever. That’s what bothers me.
It’s not particularly obvious how the developers feel about The Blob, although I think they are sympathetic to its existence. I think her body is something used lightly for shock (which has worrying connotations), but I also think there’s a strong critique of how those in power treat those who are even remotely different.
So for this sentient creature, person, or being, whatever it is, the way we leave it makes me desperately sad, frustrated, and to nail it down one last time, uncomfortable.
Horror is best when it tries to reflect something about the world around us. Easily the most contemporary of the genres at any given time, it always has something to say about the now. The best horrors may say something about when they were made, but they still feel timeless, even if it’s unfortunate when they are.
Inside is just as powerful now as it was when it was released eight years ago, and I hope I’ve made it clear how deeply it affects. Conveniently, it just so happened to have recently joined PS Plus, and while it may have spoiled what’s in store for you, experiencing the game as a moving visual piece will convey all of this better than I ever could.
Of course, while I rarely need an excuse to consume something horror-related, the approach of Halloween certainly makes it an appropriate time to get involved with what goes on in the night. So do yourself a favor and play the game with The Blob who will stay with you forever.
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