Summary
There’s a lot to like aboutDustborn. Its comic book art style is gorgeous, and when I think of story-driven adventure games that focus heavily on their characters and player choice, a lot of the things I want and expect to see are implemented wonderfully in Red Thread Games’ newest title.
I’ve lovedTelltale Gamesfor years, and Dustborn feels like an evolution of its take on the narrative adventure genre – the things you say to your companions will shape not just your relationships with them, but them as people. It does all this while weaving a story that’s unashamedly progressive and political. This is its strength, but also its biggest weakness.
It’s hard to criticise Dustborn considering it’s recently become a favourite target of Gamergaters, and saying anything bad about it feels like adding fuel to the fire. Just one look at theSteamlisting’s reviews will show that amongst a handful of well-reasoned negative reviews, there are far more saying the game is ‘woke propaganda’ and complaining about pronouns. When I say that Dustborn is bad, it’s not because it’s too woke, but because it’s indelicate in its progressiveness.
I Get It, Fascism Is Bad
I am not the kind of person to write a game off for being too political, because I’m a normal person who doesn’t act like I’m allergic to critical thinking. I loveTactical Breach Wizardsbecause it’s excellently executed, but also becauseit handles themes of authoritarian oppressionwith surprising tact and deftness.
Dustborn just doesn’t have that deftness, and my instinct as a chronically online leftist zillennial is to cringe. It feels distinctly like a product of the Trump presidency, a direct and full-throated response to the rise of rampant misinformation and the right-wing talking point of the ‘woke mind virus’. It’s direct in how it addresses the overt violence of fascist oppression. But it does all this with the subtlety of a brick flung straight at your head.
What makes this so upsetting is that as a whole, its allegories hold up well. It never says anything I disagree with, really, it just feels like it’s always screaming at me. Your protagonist can use her powers to ‘cancel’ people. A whole town is infected by ghosts that make them hateful and paranoid. The characters’ band performs songs so completely lacking in lyrical and thematic subtlety that I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. It pulls you through an explanation of its message, holding your hand every step of the way, when I want to find my own way through it.
Preaching To The Choir
Playing Dustborn, I couldn’t help but remember those anti-racist reading lists that were circulating in 2020 as the Black Lives Matter movement gained prominence. I picked up a copy of Hood Feminism, read it, and thought, “Well… yeah. I knew all that.” A lot of things that I agree with simply weren’t made for me – their impact is wasted on me because they’re telling me things I already know and agree with.
Maybe Dustborn is that, but in video game form. It feels like it’s hitting me over the head, yes, but that’s because I’m already on board with what it has to say. To me, someone who learned about intersectional feminism from the internet while I was still in the throes of puberty, what it’s saying is painfully obvious, but I’m certainly not representative of the general gaming population. Maybe this alternate history representation of life under fascism isn’t for people like me who already see strains of it in everyday life, but people who haven’t yet seen the signs and aren’t all that worried about it.
That said, I’ve played through a couple of chapters of Dustborn, and I’m trying to give it a fighting chance – earnestness isn’t something I can hold against it, especially when what it has to say is so sincere and urgent. Games that dare to say the quiet part out loud are always fighting an uphill battle. I just wish it didn’t get in its own way so much.
