GRIS – So Beautiful It Should Be Illegal:

So, a few days ago, I had hit a bit of a writer’s block. I wasn’t sure what game I wanted to talk about, so I reached out on Twitter to you guys (@OurMindGames) for any suggestions. Out of the many awesome suggestions I got from you guys, one really grabbed my attention. It was a game called GRIS, an artistic platformer that had been on my radar for a little while. People have spoken very highly of its visuals, soundtrack and powerful message – so needless to say, it seemed right up my alley. As I’m currently prepping to go back to university for my final year, I have some free time on my hands, so I decided to dedicate an afternoon to trying out GRIS. That afternoon quickly morphed into the rest of the day, until around 9 PM that evening when the credits rolled, and I sat back in my chair – stunned into silence.

The story of GRIS isn’t clearly laid out to the player. It’s told through imagery, visualization, and symbolism that will leave you pondering it’s meaning hours after you put it down. At its core, it’s a puzzle platformer. The further you progress through the game, the more abilities you unlock, which allows you to progress to new areas. It’s a fairly linear experience so you don’t worry too much about getting lost, however, the game does encourage you to explore each area to its fullest – with the key to moving on often being tucked away in a hidden cave or up a series of complex jumps. It’s a game that rewards you for taking your time and looking around, which as a completionist is a very satisfying experience.

When the game starts, you see a young girl lying in the hand of a statue – seemingly asleep. She awakes and begins to sing, gradually rising into the air when suddenly her voice just stops. Without her voice, the statue crumbles and you are powerless to watch as she plummets to the ground, a seemingly desolate place devoid of the beautiful colours of the sky above. To start with, she can barely walk without crumpling to the ground, gradually regaining her strength and abilities as the game goes on. You collect tiny stars that form little constellations, allowing you to cross gaps and restore colour to the world around you. Each colour you restore opens another section – e.g. unlocking blue restores water to the world, enabling underwater exploration.

Honestly, you could fill an art museum with screenshots of this game, and nobody would question it, as this game is visually stunning. The artists behind this game manage to make even the simplest of colour schemes and landscapes beautiful. When you combine that with the haunting soundtrack, this game is best experienced in a room by yourself, on a big screen. I played it on my switch but honestly, it deserves a fully equipped cinema with surround sound and a ginormous screen to truly appreciate every titbit of detail and love that has gone into crafting this game. The game itself is not very long, it took me about 4 hours on and off to finish a playthrough, including a twenty-minute puzzle section that I was just too dumb to realize the simple solution to.

What I really want to talk about though, is what I feel the story behind this game is. As there are only a few little cutscenes and the closest we get to any exposition from the character herself is through song, it’s mostly about how you choose to interpret it. The achievements list gives you a hint towards the game’s true meaning – specifically those related to each “Stage” or chapter of the game. I didn’t notice this until the final chapter when I popped an achievement called “Stage 5 – Acceptance”. This achievement and its counterparts all refer to stages from the Kubler-Ross model, which talks about the five stages we go through when we are grieving. Let me explain each stage and its corresponding achievement in GRIS:

Stage 1: Denial – Often our first reaction is to deny that anything is wrong as if pretending it doesn’t exist will reduce the pain later. In the first chapter of GRIS, you start out barely able to walk – collapsing to your knees frequently and struggling to stand up again. Most players will get GRIS to stand back up, but if you leave the controller and let her stand up again on her own – this stage of the model will be fulfilled, as she herself denies that anything is wrong.

Stage 2: Anger – When we are upset, often we internalize that pain and instead lash out at others. When you are hurting, sometimes you feel like that nobody understands the pain you are in and that the only way to lessen the pain you are in is to inflict it upon others. During the second chapter of GRIS, you gain the “heavy” ability which allows you to smash through unstable objects and destroy various statues/pots scattered around the world. This ability is a clear manifestation of that second stage of grief, which the achievement emphasizes as when you destroy three specific statues, you get the “anger” popup.

Stage 3: Bargaining – “Don’t you think after all this time, and everything I have ever done, that I am owed this one?” – The Doctor in the Snowmen, Season 7 of Doctor Who. This quote sums up the bargaining stage of grief for me. We feel that we are owed something, that we deserve better than our current situation presents. That maybe, just maybe, the world will take pity on us and provide that little bit of hope. We beg for it, trying to barter with chips that have no real worth anymore, even though we know deep down that it won’t work. In GRIS’s case, this is seen when you come across a statue in the forest chapter. Her first reaction to it when you try to interact is to sing to it, despite her voice still being gone. She is trying to barter with something that isn’t there anymore.

Stage 4: Depression – I think the use of the underwater section for this stage is remarkably clever. Often, we describe depression as sinking under the waves, falling further and further from the light that we so desperately try to cling to. In my case, it often feels like a heavyweight is attached to my ankle, slowly tugging me downwards no matter how hard I resist it.  In order to get this achievement in GRIS, you must seek out the statue hidden in the darkness. This section is pitch black and finding this hidden cavern is not easy, as its surroundings are full of creeping darkness that threatens to consume you. That statue is of a woman, seemingly sinking down into the inky depths, like how you fell from the sky at the beginning of the game.

Stage 5: Acceptance – After retrieving your voice and escaping the shrouding darkness, you come across a tomb on the remains of the land. In this tomb is a statue, lying down, still and quiet. If you sing to it, the acceptance achievement pops. Although it doesn’t seem like much at the time, to me it reminds me of the songs you sing at funerals. In those moments, you can hear the whirling mix of emotions in everyone’s voices – grief, joy, longing and hope all mingling together as one. It’s a haunting yet powerful experience to be a part of, whether they were your close family, a good friend or just an acquaintance.

To me, this game is a tale of grief and loss. Now, this is just my interpretation, but I think that our young protagonist has just lost her mother. To me, the start of the game seems to be the moment that the loss truly hits her and her whole world crumbles around it, losing all the joy, colour and structure that her mother brought to it. Often when we lose someone, we feel like a part of ourselves has been ripped from us, like a missing limb or a hole in your once full heart. In GRIS’s case, this manifests as the loss of her abilities. She struggles to walk, to move through the world on her own, to begin with. Her voice, which can restore life to the world and heal the cracks in it, has been stripped from her. Every time she opens her mouth, nothing comes out – as if she is on one side of a one-way mirror, slamming her hands against it but getting no response.

Every colour she restores to the world, every demon she faces (looking at you, giant creepy eel thing), brings her one step closer to overcoming the grief that is threatening to consume her. The darkness and demons chasing her, seem to indicate depression and anxiety – the way they appear and disappear, how they creep up on her and force her to flee. She can’t fight it, only try to outrun it. The same is in life, you can’t outright fight mental illness. It’s always there and it always comes back. You learn to coexist with it, to lessen its hold on you, to accept it as part of you. The end of the game leans towards this, with her seemingly moving on – her voice spiraling up into the sky, harmonizing with her mother’s, shattering the remaining darkness and restoring colour to the world. It’s a powerful ending to a powerful game.

This is probably the most moving game I’ve played in the last year. Having recently lost my grandfather, it spoke to me on an incredibly personal level. Even if you can’t afford it right now, watch a playthrough of it, or even listen to the game’s soundtrack. It is, hauntingly beautiful and something I think we all understand on a primal level. Grief and loss are a part of life, yet I hadn’t played a game that really summed up that experience until I played GRIS.

I hope you all have a great week, next up is Little Nightmares! If you enjoyed this piece, remember to like it, follow the site and comment below any feedback or suggestions for future articles!

Much love,

CaitlinRC

Tags: acceptance, anger, anxiety, bargaining, denial, depression, emotional, grief, gris, hope, imagery, loss, nintendo switch, pc, platformer, puzzle, stages of grief, storytelling, visuals