Bandersnatch is the latest installment of Black Mirror. As you probably already know (and if you don’t, you should really check it out) Black Mirror is a brilliant anthology series that shows how dystopian the world can get through advancements in technology. Often dark and unsettling, every episode seems like a cautionary tale about what the future might bring if our ethics don’t catch up with our technology in time. And while the series almost always leaves you with a pit in your stomach, it has never toyed around with the emotions of its audience as much as it did with its latest episode, although you can’t really call it an “episode”.
Bandersnatch is an interactive story that is somewhere in between a game and a TV episode. We follow our main character Stefan, and you will get to make decisions for him. Throughout the story, now and then you will be presented with two choices and a timer. Slowly but steadily, we move from making meaningless decisions (“Which brand of breakfast cereal would you like?”) to almost unsolvable ethical dilemmas. It’s definitely beautifully executed. The cuts are seamless and you basically feel like you’re playing an interactive drama game like The Telltale Games or Detroit: Becoming Human, albeit with less frequent decision-making.
But this wouldn’t be Black Mirror if the story wasn’t extremely relevant to the mechanics: Stefan is creating a game out of an old “choose your own adventure”-book. Creating heaps of different gameplay paths, he gets so immersed in his work that he slowly start to become unhinged. As this story develops (as you choose) the deeper concept starts to be revealed: the dichotomy between free will and determinism. Can Stefan create enough deterministic paths to create a sense of free will in his game? Can Stefan himself escape his own determined path we planned out for him? And it does not only pose these philosophical questions about the main character, but also of us as the decision makers. Because ultimately: are we free to choose what we want to do next? And this is what I would call utter brilliance, because this completely integrates the message with the medium it is presented in.
I know this is not a true “game” by a long shot, it is however worth checking out. Because what’s not to like about a game, presented within a game that asks such profound questions? At one point it even breaks the fourth wall in a very novel way: we as the viewer are the ones who can choose to break it. Or not. It’s up to you!
