![]() Maybe she’d been trying to kill him all along. The second (and more fitting) possibility is that she killed him. The entire thing was a gauntlet designed to keep the boy from killing his sibling, and you were the villain all along. ![]() The other kids, the ones who set the traps? They were her defenders. The first is that the boy killed his sister and left her to rot in the woods. Given the game’s macabre tone, this leaves two possibilities. And we can hear flies – a lot of flies – buzzing, suggesting there’s something disgusting nearby. There’s also a suspiciously well-defined lump on the ground that corresponds to the area right in front of where the boy was standing. And he dies, over and over again, only to resume his relentless push forward seconds later.Ī lot of time has apparently passed, as the rope ladder has mostly rotted away and the vegetation’s gotten a little more unkempt. And he seems to have no compunction about killing kids later in the game by leading them through deadly hydraulic presses. He kills a creature by ripping its last leg off and rolling its carcass onto spikes. But how much do you know about him, really? He’s pretty resourceful when it comes to manipulating the world around him. It’s not as if he has any guns or abilities beyond jumping and pulling on things. No, the protagonist of Limbo doesn’t seem very threatening. Either it’s all just a big misunderstanding, or – and I see this as more likely – they have excellent reason to be afraid of you. Why did they set all these traps? Why were they so aggressively trying to kill me, and then fleeing whenever I’d get close? I wasn’t the giant, hunting spider, after all, and if anything their actions seemed to leave them defenseless against said arachnid. Maybe it’s because I’ve played too many games and seen too many movies with giant, revelatory plot twists, but I got a strong sense of foreboding about Limbo the second the other kids started showing up. Perhaps this face-value attitude is why I feel Limbo is actually being totally straightforward and open about what’s going on. I tend not to delve too deeply into the meaning of a game – is Red Dead Redemption a dusty, desolate meditation on the futility of the human condition? No, it’s an amazing cowboy game in which I can get drunk, have gunfights and be mauled by a cougar. He is growing past being a child and is not yet a man, and he must hold onto his sister, and therefore himself, as he navigates his way through this dangerous state of flux. It refers to the metaphorical state that the boy's development takes him through. Limbo, the word in the title, does not refer only to the physical world the game takes place in. The loss of his sister thus encapsulates all of The Boy's fears of losing himself, and he must find her in order to maintain his identity and remain a whole person during his oppressive trails on the way to adulthood. They're the closest to you anyone will ever be, both in terms of shared experiences and genetics. They are your closest relationship, your closest peer and your playmate, your interaction with them forming everything of who you will evolve into as a child. If you've had a sibling of a similar age, you'll know that that relationship forms the core of your whole childhood experience. ![]() This, with its grinding machinery, repetitive automated routines and treadmill conveyor belts, represents fear of being trapped into the perceived mundanity of adult working life.Īnd central to all of this is The Boy's search for his sister. It's a sinister, dirty, sleazy place, and the grotty hotel, with its sordid sexual connotations, is central to this whole metaphor.Īnd finally he reaches the roaring, screeching industrial area. Suddenly the world of grown-ups isn't the perfect place he believed it was. Away from the safety of his childhood, he encounters an aggressive wider peer group and established hierarchy, and has to survive by his wits and evasive skills against their organized, group-led violence.įollowing this is his first experience of the wider adult world at large, typified by the broken down hotel. This section, to me, carried a major Lord of the Flies feel, evoking the idea that this was The Boy's journey to high school. The next distinct environment occurs when The Boy moves underground and begins to encounter Limbo's more sentient inhabitants, the humanoid, weapon-using Lost Boy-style characters.
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