I recently read an article by Eric Swain titled “Atmosphere is Not Enough: A Limbo and Another World Critique,” which deconstructed the way both games attempt to convey their stories through atmosphere and visuals rather than relying on a narrative dialogue. The article is clear and supportive of its points, and while I unfortunately do not have experience with the classic platformer Another World, Swain does a nice job convincing the reader of the game’s innovation in minimalistic, silent storytelling. I have, however, played Limbo multiple times, and disagree entirely with his argument that the game “seems to revel in its obtuseness.” While the game remains ambiguous enough to stay open for interpretation, something Swain accuses as being a cover-up for its alleged lack of a point, I do not think it is completely without depth.

Atmosphere is a huge part of Limbo. I’m not denying that. The environment is a lonely, expressionistic grey wasteland of looming black silhouettes and an oppressed white glow that is at times more haunting than comforting. The game is short, but in those couple hours, you find yourself traversing through a quiet forest, a bleak and noir-ish city landscape, and a strange industrial otherworld that is constantly shifting its laws until you are no longer sure which way is up and which way is down. The atmosphere is what really made Limbo stand out to most of its consumers, but in no way was this meant to distract from the game’s story.

The environment, and the way the protagonist occupies and interacts with it, is the element through which the narrative is told. To me, that narrative is death. The only hint the developers provided upon the game’s release was this: “Uncertain of his sister’s fate, a boy enters Limbo.” Throughout the protagonist’s journey into what (due to its lack of religious symbolism) seems to be a very loose and literary concept of Limbo, he is faced with death in a number of forms. The game is full of various things that will kill you in various ways, from bear traps to spike pits to giant spiders and mysterious spear-wielding children whose other victims can be seen sprawled out throughout the first third or so of the game. From the very beginning, you are forced to experience and witness death first-hand. It’s grisly, unforgiving, and it’s all around you. Within minutes of playing, this theme is very clearly established.

Despite this, the very title and premise of the game begs the question: If the boy is in Limbo, how did he die in the first place? My theory involves a car crash. Stick with me and I’ll elaborate.

In the beginning of the game, the boy awakens in a forest. To me, an empty forest is an iconic setting typically representative of being lost, alone, confused—especially for a child. This is the kind of effect I would assume being unexpectedly flung into a new plane of existence would have on someone. Obviously dazed, the boy travels down a steep cliff before coming across a boat, which you use to cross a body of water. I have read one interpretation online that suggested this represents the River Styx, which in Greek mythology is the river that forms a border between our world and the underworld. Whether or not that’s reading too far into it is up to the player, but there is no denying it is an important establishing shot, as the camera slowly zooms out and allows the reality of the boy’s situation to sink in. He is somewhere new and unfamiliar, and his sister is not with him.

Early in the game, there is a sudden aesthetic shift from the soft, organic nature of the forest to the cold sharpness of the industrial zone. For me, this signified the boy’s first step into fully coming to terms with his imminent car-related death. Perhaps everything up to that first encounter with the strange machinery acts as a flashback of the boy’s life; playing in the forest behind his home, climbing trees. Maybe he had a fear of spiders. Maybe he was bullied by other children. Maybe this forest is the tangible equivalent of the boy’s life flashing before his eyes, with the steel-jawed deathtraps scattered about the landscape serving as miniature callbacks to reality, among the flaming tires and body-crushing platforms he must avoid at various points.

Once you finally reach the industrial levels, these kinds of dangers are commonplace. The boy is perhaps more aware of his ordeal by now, but not quite. Interrupting one of the industrial zones is a brief rooftop segment, where the player must cross a giant neon-sign that reads HOTEL.

Perhaps this is simply a metaphor. A hotel is a place visited temporarily, and the boy is slowly coming to terms with the idea that where he is now, Limbo or someplace similar, is exactly that. He’ll move on eventually, but not before he accepts that. Or, maybe the hotel is a familiar place to him, part of a memory that he’s torn himself from the reality of his situation to visit, one last time. This ends quickly, however, as one of the glowing brainworms attaches itself to the boy and leads him back into the industrial zone and directly towards a spinning saw blade, forcing him out of his fantasy and back into the face of death.

In the final segment of the game, the boy is flung in every direction by way of gravity-shifting switches. This part must be done quickly and carefully, as some triggers must be activated mid-air to avoid the sharp blades at every turn. Finally, after much flying about, time slows down and the boy is thrown through a pane of glass, what we can only assume is the front windshield of the car. He lies on the ground for a while, back in the forest, before the player resumes control just long enough to get him up a shallow hill, where his sister is waiting beneath a ladder. She looks up and the game is over. The boy has realized his fate, reunited with his sister, and can peacefully move on to the afterlife.

Whether or not the gravity puzzles really represent the whiplash from the car accident, or the sharp steel and bear traps actually represent the twisted metal of the colliding vehicles, is irrelevant. This is one interpretation, and it isn’t necessarily the correct one. What matters is the developers provided the right kind of material, with a consistent theme and a solid atmosphere for their audience to interpret as they wished. For instance, I didn’t touch upon what the presence of water in the game could symbolize. It rains in some areas, it floods in others. Maybe it was rain that caused the accident. Who knows? There are many instances in the game where the boy could be electrocuted to death. Maybe he died in a storm. Maybe he fell through a glass roof, as possibly re-enacted near the segment with the hotel. These don’t fit into the interpretation I’ve provided, and to me, they’re just more material for someone else’s analysis, which would be just as valid as the next.

That is the beauty of art and interpretation, after all. My own imagining of the game’s narrative utilizes and at the same time neglects many of the elements I’ve gathered from playing through it, which just means there are so many other ways of looking at the story. It is not pretentious to leave your work open to analysis, and it is unfair to accuse a game of being such when the developers so generously provided the player with as much thematic material as they did in Limbo.

by Chloi Rad