Mental Health in Games: How they showcase it and can positively impact the next generation.
- Jun 6, 2024
- 8 min read
Updated: Jun 7, 2024
Iona Wilson
07/06/2024
Disclaimer: This may contain sensitive subjects and topics that may be triggering to some.
This post will discuss mental health and illnesses.
Have you ever been playing a game when you notice that the characters are dealing with issues to do with their mental health? How it becomes a big part of the game's storyline as you follow your character while they deal with grief, anxiety, depression, and even PTSD. You follow their highs and their lows, and you seek better choices for them through the options given to you by the game developers.
For many, mental health is a sensitive topic, but seeing a character in your favourite game processing it and getting help can make it easier. As the years go on, the art of gaming is positively reflecting it and helping people seek help.
A few games I have played personally that represent mental health I have identified with are:
Life is Strange: Before The Storm
The Last Of Us
Detroit: Become Human
And some others that talk about many other mental health issues and struggles.
The Last Of Us Part I & II
Starting with one of the most memorable and emotional games I have played - The Last Of Us Series. With in-depth characters and a captivating storyline, how could this game not make this post?
Naughty Dog took their time in making the characters of the game have emotional relationships and hardships within their story-lines while also presenting mental health topics such as grief and PTSD and how you can find new beginnings in the darkest of places. Two of the main characters - Joel and Ellie, have an emotional story, and their backstories make you feel for the characters in a profound way as you watch them struggle to accept the companionship of loss that they have both experienced in this new world.
Within the first game, we meet Joel, who is struggling with stress from raising his daughter Sarah and the potential bankruptcy of his construction company. This then goes on to Joel being attacked by his neighbour who was infected by the cordyceps virus; Joel, Sarah, and his brother, Tommy, escape through a town in Texas where Sarah, unfortunately, gets shot in Joel's arms and dies.
We then meet Joel again 20 years later, where he isn't the same due to the guilt and grief that affects him still down the line, which has changed him completely from a loving father to a shell of his former self. When playing through this game, I enjoyed how real the developers made the characters feel to the player and how emotional and compelling the storyline was.
The way this game explores mental health is realistic to how it can be to the players who deal with these in everyday life. I have seen responses online towards the game where people explain how they got the courage to speak up and seek help.
In part two, Ellie has grown and has to deal with the horrific loss of a father figure due to another character seeking revenge. Ellie now has to navigate a life without Joel in this world, and her grief turns into anxiety and PTSD, which shows itself in ways of nightmares, flashbacks, and panic attacks while performing mundane tasks.
This game personally helped me deal with my emotions and also showed me there are many sides to stories and how there are consequences to my actions.
Joel - PTSD, grief, Anxiety
Ellie - PTSD, Anxiety, Panic Attacks
Life is Strange: Before the Storm
Life is Strange is known for challenging taboo's within the conversation of mental illness/health and its effects and how the characters deal with them on their own and with other characters.
We meet Chloe Price, a teenager who is depressed from grief and loneliness from the passing of her father and her best friend suddenly moving away. Before the Storm shifts away from the other big games within the franchise, as there is no power involved and focuses the plot on dealing with the circumstances as it is rather than what it could be, as the other games are more about being able to solve or rewind time to have a second chance with Max's time travel or Alex's empathetic power's.
On the BBC website, Zak Garriss (lead writer of the game's developer) told the BBC.
"Mental health is not what we talk a lot about in most cultures. There's a taboo around depression."
"We want to challenge that taboo and say, 'It's OK to not be OK."
He also goes on to mention The Life is Strange franchise encourages thought and reflection that small decisions lead to detrimental consequences but also to remember anything can change within the blink of an eye, which is essential for people with depression and anxiety to remember.
Chloe Price - Depression, grief, and loneliness.
Detroit: Become Human
This game is more theories I have seen on Reddit and other social media websites, which have players explore and discuss concepts and thoughts regarding androids and mental health within this game rather than mental health/illness being portrayed and spoken about. It is thought that it is more subtle as they portray abuse and how hard it can be for the victims to seek help openly without endangering themselves in the process.
We follow three characters, Connor, Markus, and Kara, and how their stories change, and relationships devolve or grow. This game has the same mechanics as Life is Strange. Still, this game has 85 different endings depending on the choices you make towards situations and attitudes towards characters, which may help you further along in the story depending on how you treated them in the past.
There have been theories and speculations about the androids having mental health/illnesses such as PTSD and OCD while also taking a look at abuse. Within the game, we meet three primary victims who have suffered from symptoms that resonate with these illnesses that have stemmed from being abused by their owners. Therefore, players have taken to social media to discuss theories surrounding this. Looking at one of the three characters, HK400, who you meet while playing as Connor during an interrogation. HK400 was brought in by police as he killed his owner, Carlos Ortiz, and proclaimed it was self-defence due to him being abused by Ortiz. Below is the interrogation of the android HK400...
According to the 'National Coalition Against Domestic Violence' website, Many abused victims stay with their abusers due to the fear that their abusers may kill them. furthermore, there is fear from the victims not having a social support system out with which also causes the victim to feel isolated and alone. For MK400, this is how his humanity was activated and how he developed human like responses such as PTSD similar to abuse victims which is also showcased within the Kara and Alice storyline where we are made to believe that Alice is human to begin with. Her father Todd is shown to come at her with a belt in his hand and Kara witnesses this and her motherly instincts are activated towards Alice as is her humanity.
This game teaches the player about the effects of these illnesses and how they could develop for the person, or in this case, the android. We also have to be careful on the decisions made and the treatment given to the characters as they could help us later within the game and how anything can change the course of the story, it all depends on what you choose.
Alice: Madness Returns
Continuing on with our last game of this blog - Alice: Madness Returns is a fan favourite in the gaming community, and as it should be. This game explores our main character Alice and her experiences dealing with schizophrenia, PTSD and survivors guilt.
In Alice's earlier years, we learn that she was in a tragic house fire which caused her mother, father and older sister to sadly pass away, leaving Alice an orphan. The link below shows the opening sequence for American Mcgee's Alice game that was released in 2000 which shows how the house fire began and what came after...
Furthermore, Alice then becomes "insane" believing herself responsible for the house fire that took her family and home away from her this then caused her to escape to a twisted and mind warped version of wonderland. Alice was then sent to an asylum 'Rutledge Asylum' for treatment for her Schizophrenia and PTSD where she was forced to let go of her doubts and memories that had been twisted and was eventually released from the ward.
In Alice: Madness Returns - Alice is now a resident in a orphanage in Victorian London. Alice is under the care of a psychiatrist called Dr. Angus Bumly, he uses Hypnotism on his child patients which help them forget their memories and, in a way, help them move on and treat them of the ailments that plague them. Alice believes she is cured of her madness although she is still having hallucinations of her twisted wonderland.
The visuals are stunning and the game play will captivate you and pull you in. If your a platform and gore-slasher gamer, then your in the right place for this fantastic game. I personally have not played this title unlike the others so I cannot share my experience and the effects of the game unfortunately but I can share some reviews that have left me wondering if this game should save a space in my library in the future.
On IGN they state: "Alice: Madness Returns' Wonderland is enormous, beautiful, and imaginative. During its best moments, Alice: Madness Returns is a memorable portrait of a fantastical world. Soaring through the clouds of the Cardbridge is inspired, and walking the streets of a gloomy London is an excellent counterpoint to the brighter light of Wonderland. The two-dimensional, newsprint-style cut-scenes between chapters are stylish and interesting."
The graphics pull players into a world where mental health/illness is explored through impressive graphics and imaginative game play.
This game focuses a lot on Alice and how she struggles with the illnesses mentioned yet I cannot find any reviews stating how this came to effect the players positive nor negative within the mental illness/health aspect - The only reviews I have found either talk about how the game play was blocky and receptive or how they found this game when they were young and it either drew them in or scared them away.
In conclusion...
With these games either personally leaving an emotional imprint on me and the players or how i have scavenged reviews and video essays about them, I can definitely say I hope we get more games like these in the future where they explore these mental struggles and the effects of them either to the player, character and even the story which they exist within.
I will forever have a soft spot for The Last Of Us and Life is Strange, which is why i could speak for days about how the stories are beautifully written and executed, and the life changing effects they brought me. Compared to some of the other games mentioned in this blog post which i have still yet to play in the near future, and i will do my best to keep a look out for future games that can show that mental health/illnesses are nothing to be ashamed of and that while seeking help can be scary, it can be the best thing you ever do.
Helpful links below:
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