Summarise What a Completed Video Game Is Actually About Beneath the Surface Narrative

You played it, you finished it, and now you want to know what it was actually about. Games communicate through what they make you do as much as through what they tell you. This works through the game beneath the plot: what the mechanics say, what the design rewards and resists, the argument the game appears to be making, and whether it holds together.

You have finished a video game and want to understand it more fully than the plot summary allows. Summarise what the game is actually exploring beneath its surface narrative.

Work through: the stated narrative (what the game says it is about in its premise and ending); the mechanical narrative (what the act of playing the game communicates that the story alone does not, for example: what the game rewards, what it makes difficult, what it repeats); the thematic argument the game appears to be making; the moment in the game that most clearly expresses what it is about; and whether the game's themes and mechanics are coherent or whether they pull in different directions.

Game title: [title]
If you have notes on specific moments, paste them below.