Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons Review

Sibling revelry. 

Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons is a beautiful and sometimes darkly mature echo of the fairytales that taught us about the world as children. Throughout the journey of two siblings trying to save their dying father, I experienced themes of death and acceptance that hit me on an extremely personal level, visited fascinating dreamlike locations, and interacted with the world in completely unique ways. And though Brothers’ unconventional twin-stick adventure controls often tripped me up along the way, this short storybook walkabout is as attractive as it is affecting.

Much of Brothers’ charm lies in its keen skill at nonverbal storytelling. The characters speak in an imaginary and incomprehensible language without subtitles, so it’s up to us to glean information by exploring and interacting with the gorgeous environment. Each area, character, and object contains its own piece of the story, and it's up to you to assemble those bits as you progress through your journey.

Through your adventure begins in a Nordic-inspired village filled with pleasant townsfolk and simple stories, you’ll eventually make your way to ancient battlefields where the rivers flow with blood, frozen lakes that contain unknown horrors beneath the ice, and prisons perched high atop lonely castles. The settings never failed to wow me, and the ways that Brothers continually drops you into new and interesting locales is absolutely fantastic.

Sadly, the characters aren’t crafted with the same visual love as the world itself. This isn’t too big of a problem when the camera is zoomed out a bit, but

anytime I was forced to take a close look at a character model pulled me out of the experience quite quickly. Thankfully these close-ups don’t occur very often, and when they do, Brothers quickly replies with something new and amazing.

Brothers is also extremely innovative in how it leaves much of its worldbuilding and character development in our hands. If you want to simply charge through each area and solve their simple puzzles with the sole purpose of progressing through the story, you’re given the option to do just that. But be warned that in your haste you’ll miss out on a bevy of side-stories and subtle moments of characterization that help mold this adventure into something truly special. In those stories there are dozens of small interactions that will stick with me for quite some time. Renewing a man’s will to live by reuniting him with something extremely sentimental, helping a timid animal come out of its shell, and just taking a moment to soak in the world are all completely optional, yet remarkable.

Another thing I’ll long remember about Brothers is its innovative, but ultimately frustrating controls. It’s an interesting setup, in that you have to use the siblings in tandem to explore the world and solve some basic puzzles. For example, if you place one brother at the base of a wall and interact with it, he'll ready himself to help prop his sibling up to an out-of-reach ledge. Developer Starbreeze takes a risk by having us control both siblings simultaneously using only the analogue sticks and the trigger buttons, with the left pair being devoted to the older brother and the right pair to the younger.

Though that sounds great on paper, it certainly doesn’t pay off in practice. Whenever the brothers crossed paths on screen so that the younger brother was on the left and the elder on the right, my brain and my fingers would immediately fall out of alignment. Maybe I'd get over it with enough practice, but this three-hour campaign isn't long enough to teach me that lesson.

While the act of movement often becomes cumbersome, the world is full of interesting things to see and interact with, and the controls do make that interaction stand out as different from most other games I’ve played. For example, there's an optional area where you stumble upon a man just moments before he attempts to hang himself. You can quickly use one of your brothers to prop him up while directing the other to scurry up a tree to cut the rope. Or, you can simply turn around and continue traveling along the main road, leaving the man to die a lonely death. Despite never being prompted to help this stranger, and not receiving any sort of tangible reward for doing so (other than more story opportunities), knowing that he lived solely because of my actions left me moved.

I also adore the brothers' simple, context-sensitive interactions. Because each sibling has a unique set, both feel distinctly quirky. Interacting with a harp reveals that the younger sibling is a musical savant, while the older one couldn’t hold a tune to save his life. Similarly, the little brother takes a more playful approach to the environment, while his big brother clearly has his eye on the task at hand. These brief, optional moments of silent characterization perfectly summarize the level of unique storytelling that only video games can accomplish.