We Go Forward
There’s a moment in We Go Forward
where you realize the game isn’t going to let you undo anything. You move forward through these little scenes—stages of life, choices, moments—and once you pass them, they’re gone. No going back to save someone, to say something different, to choose differently. The whole thing’s dressed up like a playful comic in video game form, but that’s the real weight of it.
The game walks you through the small and large hurdles everyone hits. Loss is baked in. You lose people, you lose versions of yourself, you lose time. Effort, memory, time—and then it’s just forward again. Always forward. No matter how much it costs.
I’ve been making things for twenty years and I still catch myself trying to revisit decisions, second-guess calls, go back and fix something I can’t actually touch anymore. That’s not how it works. The game knows that. It’s gentle about it, which almost makes it worse.
What stays with me is how matter-of-fact it all is. Not maudlin, not trying to make you cry. Just: here’s what happens. Here’s what it feels like when you can only move ahead. The small and big hurdles aren’t obstacles to overcome—they’re the path itself. They’re what it means to be alive.
I don’t know if that makes it beautiful or just true. Maybe those are the same thing.