The Most Devastating Video Game You’ve Never Played
As mentioned, the story of Before Your Eyes follows Benjamin's life. We watch him struggle to deal with the pressure placed on him by his mother to pursue his natural talent as a pianist, despite him not knowing if he's even that passionate about music. During a year recovering from an illness, he realises he's actually passionate about art, so spends the next few years honing his skills as a painter, going to college and eventually becoming a highly respected and commercially successful artist. Late in his life he even reconnects with his childhood pal, Chloe. It's the kind of grand, interesting life that would impress the afterlife's Gatekeeper.
Cutting back to the boat after the final memory, the Ferryman asks you to sum up Benjamin's time on Earth. Through a big speech that recounts his entire story, you're given a choice to correct the Ferryman on the broad details. You decide whether Benjamin had a lonely or happy childhood. You decide whether his mother was encouraging or demanding. Whether Chloe was a first love or just friendly neighbour. After recounting the story, the Ferryman tells you something: he knows you're lying.
Pushed back into the memories, he forces Benny to drop this story and confront the truth, that he didn't become a successful painter and grow old, and he didn't miraculously get well during the year he was ill. In reality Benjamin was diagnosed with a terminal illness. It's here that you play out his real final months, as he slowly succumbs to the disease at age 11.
No longer swapping to happy memories, each blink now results in just one scene: Benjamin's bed, with the only details changing being the calendar on the wall, the Get Well Soon cards, and a floating red ball of light. This red scribble reflects Benny's pain, which regularly flares up. You can initially subdue it by taking medication, but after enough blinks, the remedies stop working, and the red gets closer.
In the final scene, Benny is comforted by his mother. She says that she read his story about a boy who grew up to become a painter, and while she found it interesting, she didn't really like the person in it so much. So she's written another version for him, titled "The Great Life Of Benjamin Brynn". She reads it to him, offering her own perspective on Benjamin's life, one where she tenderly explains how he made the lives of everyone he knew better. How he always gave his parents hope, and comforted the lonely girl next door. How he worried that he hadn't accomplished enough in his 11 years, but that he shouldn't feel regret at moving on now, because had lived a great, full life even in this short time.
The swirling music, moving script and tender voice performance in this scene make it one of the most affecting in video game history. And so, when the mother finishes and the player is encouraged to fully close their eyes to end Benny's story, I couldn't open them again. I had tears all down my face, and I just had to sit there, listening to the music play out, not wanting to come back to reality.
[Concluded on page 5.]