Everything from the last 15 hours led to this point: my brother and I, standing in front of the wall. The the wall. I had no idea we were going to make it here. After that, we were the two kids who went down the border, with only a few dollars in our name. The issues, and most importantly the law, are against us.
Then again, I've heard a life of good news like this, from friends and family. My mother was young for the first time when she crossed the border.
People risk getting into the United States, even if they mean it you may not do it, even if it means sitting in cages, even if it means climbing cruel, degrading works because people who I do not fully see myself as a person. Anything to get a chance in real life with no violence and extreme poverty.
I grew up around these issues, but my experience is different. I was lucky enough to be born in the United States, which means I never cross the border – until I play a video game. In this case, the purpose is not to enter the U.S. as a foreigner, but to leave the country as full-blooded American boys.
I wasn't entirely sure of that Life is Strange 2 it will actually take players to the border, as he proposed near the end of his first episode. Politically too, I thought, as I waited for the game to finally pull its spear.
Back in 2018, the first episode of Health Surprising 2 introduce the players to Daniel, a young boy who lost his father to police brutality. Daniel accidentally killed the officer using his mysterious magical powers. I play as Sean Diaz, Daniel's brother who is facing an impossible election. The boys have no caregivers. Their father is dead. Their mother left the family years ago, for reasons never fully explained. The only family left by Diaz's parents at the time was their grandparents, who are in a similar situation, and may not be able to bear the granddaughter wanted for murder.
Photo: Dontnod Entertainment by Polygon
In a shocked moment, the chief executive, Sean, recalls that his father owned a plot of land in a place called Los Lobos, where the rest of his Mexican family lived. Maybe her siblings can escape the law?
It's a jump, and one that can be difficult to understand … except brown. White people in this country can fire a church, and only have one The police bought them a Burger King within hourssite. People with real melanin in their skin, though? The system feels tied to us. We are concerned that the police will shoot first. And if we do it without conflict with the living police, blacks and blacks should be afraid of the legal system it has plan them incorrectly for actions they did not do. It is no accident that recent work in a different location, The Queen and Slim, also suggests a similar solution (to run) after its characters kill a police officer in self-defense. It trusts the legislative willingness to properly treat the right to privilege. Blacks and blacks do not always have this luxury.
Obsessive, but dull
Life is Strange has, as a franchise, never been subtle, digging up a series of youthful stories of the well-meaning mix of honesty and innocence. The results have been a grab bag. The first game was a combination of tender moments between the two girls and the traumatic scenes where they had to watch each other die repeatedly – only when the next episode cleared everything up. You can say that first Life Is Wonderful he has come under more complex topics such as rape, euthanasia, and suicide, but it often comes more as an attempt to give the player a thumbs up, than to make him show up.
Life is Strange 2Your primary concern is race. The first heartbreaking tragedy begins to occur after Sean's neighbor yells that he should return to his "homeland," though Sean is born in the United States. Later, there is a great moment when Sean is stopped by two men who threaten to harm him if he does not sing and dance in Spanish. The more the player refuses, the more they watch Sean.
Creative director Raoul Barbet tells Polygon that it was a "difficult" but important event to document. When most games give players dreams of a power dream, Life is Strange 2 It aims to end when pain and humiliation are the only way out.
Based on my experience, this method feels crass. Reality emphasizes the way video games have the same penalties and punch in the face, as those are some of the actions played here. To me, racism is definitely not a straightforward argument when a bigot threatens me with violence (or even specifically says my background); it is more common than that The knives environment. Personal, clear, and intimate infidelity where things are displayed but probably not specifically mentioned.
Photo: Claire Folger / Lionsgate
I have a memory of helping my uncle's boss, the one who always called us "family," get rid of the party – but I'm not hidden in the kitchen, our presence is a shame. It ignores a small alarm in the rich white man's voice when I tell them I went to the same private school as their child. It is questionable that I am a white boy. Only one black person in the room is asked why everything is about race. It's a constant feeling that well-meaning whites have a smile on my face as they hit me with a tooth. And I found it nice, a little talkative.
One day, one of my closest friends, that onethe dreamer”Drawing on his chest, he told me that he was always thinking about committing suicide. In some respects, it is a matter of documentation that he or she may own. In part because of the torrent of "Woman Runaway Girl Because & # 39; She Was Mexican, & # 39; Police said"No"El Paso Suspect Agrees to Punish Mexicans. ”I do not know what orders or higher orders can be stopped without warning. I know that, no matter what the government says say, actually it does has nothing to do with the law – even if you are a real citizen. It creates dental health.
Life is Strange 2 does not have a range for capturing such experiences, instead of opting for outdated, wonderful moments. There is a part in the last episode, for example, when Sean asks Daniel to use his power so they can break down the border wall. But the wall only covers a small part of the border. No one trying to cross the border would take the path that Sean and Daniel chose in the game. And yet.
Photo: Dontnod Entertainment by Polygon
Life is Strange 2 it can be overwhelming at times, so video games are often, but it can also do the beauty of proving that what I know is actually true. Sometimes, that's enough.
As Joshua Rivera noted last year in Kotaku, there it is Latinx void at the heart of video games. This is probably the most visible video game that deals with the immigration problem in the U.S., rather than removing it from the absurd determination involving elves, orcs, or aliens who might be worse for their oppressors in some way.
Most of the time, however, the game companies are here emphasizing their neutrality. That flawed mind often gives me a whiplash when I go back to the real world, which, moreover, reminds me of how likely they are not looking for black people.
Developers in Dontnod have done a lot of research, they say, including traveling to the border on their own and interviewing people who live near the area. That is how the creative directors of the game, Michel Koch and Raoul Barbet, learned to be very careful with the armed forces who believed they were “taking advantage” (of the world) when trying to kidnap the aliens themselves, something that happens and is evident in the game.
Life is Strange 2Creative directors told Polygon that some Latinx players had informed French studios that they had been in legal situations like the one where Sean was threatened by racists. Never include all the far-flung movements, such as Brexit and alt-right, that sprout the globe in response to the concerns of immigrants.
Photo: Dontnod Entertainment by Polygon
It was always very light and violent, according to my mother. Crossing used to be easy, he says, because the country knew it needed cheap labor. For them, when he arrived, he was kidnapped by immigrants and actually gave up, something he says probably won't happen now.
It is possible Life is Strange 2 He doesn't have to do more to allow me to stand on the border and give me a decision – any decision – on this iconic case that has shone my whole life. Being the first-generation kid to carry the weight of a family who gave everything to get a chance. It's starting to be a stranger to those same people as I slowly forget my native language. It's scary to ask my mom what her dream job was as a child, before she was dropped out of school to work full time. It is frustrating under the knowledge that he crosses the border not once, not twice, but three times – including one time to save me from captivity. I'm not sure he knew if he could safely return to catching that accident. We're not really talking about these things. Other news, I'm afraid to know more fully. The instruments I know of – civil wars, tragedies, earthquakes that destroy the world – are enough.
In episode four, Sean and Daniel finally reunite with their late mother, Karen, who has now heard all about running the country. After years of abandonment, the player gets to decide how they will treat the family rival. As it turns out, talking to a digital mom is easy for me. (The lack of it probably helps.) Obviously, I'm not alone in this. The location of the creative directors who tend to be actors is heroes, which may explain why the end-of-the-game stats show the amount of fans made by Karen despite the fact that she was seriously injured by the characters in the game.
"I'm not sure in real life, this kind of (high) percentage would be the same," Barbet said, noting that the public often abused absent mothers. I know this personally. When my mother arrived in the country, she left two children too young to cross the border. Don't say you did it for them; The whole point was to make enough money to send and make sure they had a full stomach while receiving the right education. But years later, when the brothers were able to come here legally, the hatred for being left behind, even if "for good reason," was clear. The border is a series of fractures.
By the end of the game, Sean doesn't have much of a choice left: Spending years in prison in a series of misunderstandings, or starting a new life in Mexico. So, I sent her across the border. They came this way, I thought, and they suffered so much, to go back now.
In my games, Daniel has taken a lot of all the choices I have made up to that point, and then decided to split up with Sean in order to stay in the U.S. It is the dominant image that left me in tears, or to be told that the whole ending is at least a little. You see the whole game happen in Sean's eyes, only when the final decision changes the opinion of Daniel, who is old enough to own his own to say whether he wants to cross the border or not.
After a deduction for credit, I decided to call my mom. I have been starting to get back – from the game, from the greatest medical parts about my past, and since I just finished Ocean Vuong & # 39; s On Earth Good Earth, is a deep-seated novel about the unique disability that comes with being the child of immigrants in the United States.
“Southern flight chiefs will not make it back north,” wrote Vuong, reflecting on the migration patterns of butterflies. "Therefore, each departure is final. Only their children return; only the future repeats the past."
My mom told me that 20 years ago, the whole family raised money for her for a big trip out of the forest. How do you still remember that long night when he made beds with wild grass. He told me how he went down the cliff fence to cross the border, how he felt as he climbed to new ground. In his early days in the United States, he spent a lot of lice pulling on his hair. He can laugh at that now. Maybe she'll go back and live there when she's old and tired, she said. One day, one day.
