I usually advocate for Occam’s Razor, in shaving away all of the excess of complicated theories and leaving the simplest explanation left as the correct deduction.

Always trust in the simplest reasoning

As I detailed in my last post, I was finally able to reach the first “not true” ending of Silksong, after weeks of sojourning my way to and through the Citadel. However not true the ending remains, it was true enough to merit a credit roll, which in my book counts as a finish line of sorts, even if it only remains a soft beating and not a hard throttling of said title. Not that I don’t plan on diving head on into Act 3, where the true horrors await, with an eventual 100% there after, but that journey will be done in a lonelier capacity, as I wrap up my day to day articles involving Silksong come tomorrow. As an aside, I’m also realizing yesterday’s post should have been entitled “Nothing Over the Rainbow” instead of Beyond, as a better linguistic play in reference to the Judy Garland song, but when one is writing and editing through one bloodshot eye at ten billion miles an hour, it can be hard to conceive of these small details from time to time.

Anyone who has followed ATE attentively over a longer period of time may have heard me say how dead inside I feel on Saturday nights in the past. This is due to the fact that it never doesn’t happen, as I always seem to be completely depleted of energy by the time the sun goes down any given Saturday, and it is always a source of great contention in getting anything meaningful done within the same time frame. This occurrence is also ideal, as it happens to fall smack dab in the middle of my work week, so positively ideal, as one can imagine. I think this time around, I also am suffering from post game finale mood disorder, where I suffer from a sense of melancholy after beating a title, so it is an exceptional moment bereft of energy and mood on a radical level of abysmal ambivalency all around.

Try as I might to predicate myself on extreme efficiency and resounding resiliency, I remain just another flawed meat bag through and through, and I grow exhausted and fall whim to flaw over a long enough period of extended high intensity activity like any other man under a yellow sun. This is all likely for the best, as it reminds me of my most important aspect; the humanity that continues to drive me forward, and doing so successfully without outsourcing my greatest trait to an AI in the process.

Newton’s first law of motion dictates that objects in motion stay in motion, and is a keenly relevant concept to the everyday, even something as silly as beating a video game, and also relates to my ideas of “becoming” that I philosophically wax about so often. To become is a process, and if done ideally, is an essentially endless process to boot. So, in the moments where one expends a lot of energy to finish up a game, then the inevitable will occur, and there will be the fall that happens after the rise, which means my “becoming” is put on hold as I rest, after what feels like a tense exertion process to reach a finale after weeks of contestement.

Now might not be a good time for me to consider the notion of whether or not I’m going to cap off my streak of posts with some semi-official review of Silksong of sorts, but my gut-instinct is telling me no, and not just because of a low energy kind of vibe. People tend to expect certain things, see ideas and representations in messaging and “being”, a world defined by a standard of interpretation. While it is true I don’t mind doing reviews, and even did one for Doom and Gex under similar circumstances, I do not feel the need to do so with Silksong., as I feel like I have absolutely nothing of value to add to that conversation, and I do not think anyone looking for advice on whether or not they would “have fun” playing Silksong wants to hear from me on the matter, for so many obvious reasons, not the least of which is contrivance. After all of my musings with Silksong, I’m left feeling satisfied with my engagement with the title, though I would likely suggest to the vast majority that they would not feel the same way, ironically. And to steer clear to save themselves the grief. Most simply aren’t built to accommodate what this pilgrimage demands, and there is nothing wrong with that reality.

I do stand basking in the warmth of desire that there is a cultural evolution of sorts in reference to how people engage with video games, as I feel as if they are worthier of different levels of engagement than people who simply look to “have fun” with them, and that many should seek a greater level of meaning imbued within that particular moment in time, beyond the fun of a game, I mean. Perhaps I am expecting too much from a medium that is just attempting to service the lowest common denominator, one of which is apart of the demographic that doesn’t use their turn signals when driving.

If nothing else, maybe Silksong is a great reminder that of all the colors of expectation that people tend to color with, it is rare we see them do so with anything but black and white. Let us breathe a sigh of collective relief then, that in moments of messy imperfection, we are able to marvel at the overlapping grey area that remains in between.

-Pashford