This time on Brick Throw we have a very special guest writer, AndresPlays from Pixel Byte Gaming! A wonderful games journalist and creative, we're happy to share this piece written by him about a new game: Future? No Thanks! Enjoy.
Future? No Thanks! paints a quaint utopia where the socialists won. The kicker? You are a grumpy boomer forgotten by society. CW: Death
When I was about ten years old, I had my first existential crisis. Going to Catholic church was a common occurrence. As a “smart kid,” as my aunts and uncles would call me, I often read and would usually overthink. Everything. One day at Sunday mass it occurred to me. I am going to die. I will die someday. When the thought would keep me up at night those first few days of my realization, I did the only thing that was in my reach at the time: seek counsel from the priest. Lying there in the confessional crying about my deep fear of death, he just responded to me, “Worry about it when you’re older.” Future? No Thanks! presents a different, albeit a thousand times more acidic, kind of approach to existentialism.
This one-of-a-kind adventure caught my attention when the developer Molleindustria posted a chart comparing it to Grand Theft Auto 6 (obviously showing Future? No Thanks! as the evident winner of this competition). It being a small-sized open world completable in 5 hours piqued my interest. Then I dug deeper. Get this: you are an elderly man on his last day alive. With his euthanasia scheduled and ready to go, his bucket list must be completed before then. Quite a premise that only turns the more interesting with what the game wants to focus on.
You see, the setting of Future? No Thanks! is an ecofriendly utopia. The Euthanasia Ward, where the game begins, is inside the Bernie Sanders Geriatric Hospital. That’s right. That Bernie. Every conversation that you have, from the death doula who will guide you through this process to kind old ladies, offers an array of wild options. It is revealed in dialogue choices that you are a conservative Christian, estranged from your family, and can’t wait to kiss goodbye this godawful future. You can also choose to flirt (and fail miserably) with grandmas in hopes that you will score one last time.
If you have not played the game yet, this could come across as sleazy and creepy, but the truth is that the game is endlessly funny in the way it presents you with all of these options. It is clear where the developer stands politically by looking at the situations the snarky protagonist and his unfortunate side characters are in. For example, there is a robodog right next to you the whole time, thoughtfully pointing out how much of a failure you are at life and death. Yet there is also a kind of hope that this man might change for the better in his last waking hours.
I read a post recently that said a person did not want to watch a new TV series because they would rather not learn a new plot. So they are stuck watching the same comfort shows over and over again. That’s fair. Rejecting the premise of “the future” is something we can choose to do every day. I myself am guilty of listening to the same old playlist when I was a teenager, including The Killers, My Chemical Romance, and The Strokes. Conscious of how that could make me get stuck in a rut (it has happened before), I try to venture out into the unknown. How will I ever know what will become my new favorite song, film, or game if I don’t give them a try?
Future? No Thanks! is a tragicomedy, through and through. You can empathize with the elderly protagonist and his plight against a kind democratic socialist utopia for someone who grew up earning everything hand over first. Or you can abhor him. What the game does is have the gall to say something about the nature of getting older and being forgotten. To do so while also poking fun at political systems and come out in favor and against them in the smartly written way that they are is intriguing enough. The comical elements where anarcho-capitalists joke with the old man may just be the cherry on top.
Perhaps I would not have become an agnostic had the priest I consulted in my existential crisis said something more in line with what is expected of the clergy. I started looking for answers elsewhere, considering time waits for no one. As I have gotten older, I still have not found clear-cut answers. If you can believe it, no one in human history has. But what I have found in Future? No Thanks! Is something much more comforting: the fact that it is likely I will stop caring? Having fun for fun’s sake, not being consumed by anxiety, and hopefully witnessing the death of evil oligarchs are something to look forward to. And maybe racing in a wheelchair.
**Disclosure: A key was provided for this review**