Spoilers ahead for the entire Freebird Games franchise, obviously.

The Freebird Games anthology from To The Moon, through Bird Story, Finding Paradise, Imposter Factory and finally the Beach Episode is one of the greatest achievements in indie game storytelling out there. (You can also throw in the little bonus episode DLCs and spin-off projects later added to canon such as The Mirror Lied and Quintessence).

The latest instalment drove the thematic minigames to the next level, encapsulating and communicating so much to players who pay attention.

This is just a love letter to the game, and I hope to highlight themes and expression you might have missed in the shorter experience of the Beach Episode.

This is a game about what you do after, how you deal with it, and how to best reflect on the past of it.

Play Arcade and Infinite Regression

There’s a lot of little ways that the Beach Episode hides messages and themes explored in previous games in series, usually inside minigames and small scenes. The premier minigame of the Beach Episode is “Play Arcade”.

Play Arcade is an arcade game in which you play a character looking for the “Play Arcade” machine in their arcade, so that they can play Play Arcade.

Naturally, that player then has to “Play Arcade” and find the machine in their world. Then, that player plays arcade and has to find the next.

What this means in gameplay terms is you have an increasingly small screen as layers and layers of Play Arcade stack, until eventually you run out of time or, I’m assuming (I didn’t manage it myself) break the game.

The game starts glitching and jumping when there are so many stacked, and I managed to beat the high scores which was enough for me.

Not only is this whole thing a nice distraction from the emotional intensity of the game, but also a massive nod to Imposter Factory.

One of the key themes of the series as a whole is reality and “the fiction we tell ourselves”. In Imposter Factory, we discover that there are layers upon layers of simulations in the memory machine used in the games.

Play Arcade is a microcosm of that idea, an arcade game that deepens and deepens layer by layer before collapsing under its own weight. Each layer makes the next more distorted, less detailed and harder to control.

This isn’t just a gameplay gimmick, it’s an encapsulation and reminder of everything Imposter Factory showed us about how levels of reality work in the machine.

Being able to communicate so much in such a simple minigame is the mark of truly excellent game design and storytelling.

Fake it ’till You Make it

One scene in the Beach Episode sees us discover our ageing boss and his wife on the roof of the beach resort. The couple have the spot reserved, but we manage to sneak in.

The scene begins by showing the two being all ‘lovey-dovey’ (to use a technical term) and generally as over-the-top romantic as you might expect from a cliché romance film or series.

The twist is that the pair reveal, upon spotting us on the roof with them, that they were “playing” roles. They don’t actually like all that over-the-top traditionally “romantic” stuff, but they say it. They play the roles and spout the lines and talk about how beautiful the moon is that night, not because it’s profound or natural, but because in doing so they find their reality.

By acting over the top and talking like they’re in a scene from a romantic movie, the couple keep the spark alive. They know the talk is all platitudes and wishy-washy sayings and one-liners, but underneath all that they recognise the desire for each other which allows this whole scheme to work.

Once again, the theme of “reality” not mattering quite as much as people like to believe comes into play. You can be on the 4th layer of reality and be acting to each other from a script of “top romantic sayings”, but underneath all that you can still be truly, actually, really, in love.

The Ending Isn’t Everything

This theme is seen from both sides in the Beach Episode. Throughout the series the idea has been prominent, as it’s intrinsically tied to what our protagonists do for a living.

The company we work for use devices to enter people’s memories and change them in the moment before their death. Essentially we change their lives to what they request so they die with the memory of a life they chose (within the realms of possibility).

The whole idea revolves around endings and the path to it. Without a client having the life they had, they wouldn’t seek to change it to begin with, and if the journey mattered more than the ending they wouldn’t care to change how they feel in their final moments.

But, then again, maybe the reason they want to change their journey to that inevitable end is exactly because they recognise that the journey is more important.

This is arguably the most prominent theme that the Beach Episode addresses, outright asking the question to the protagonists towards the end. The discovery that endings do matter and must matter is an upend to the philosophy of some of the other games, and hints that whatever our views on endings are they might change when we actually face it.

This idea is also beautifully captured by God of War Ragnarok in the story Kratos regales to Atreus. The story sees a tired old man face Death, and Atreus (and the player) expects the message will be that the man goes gladly, accepting his fate nobly.
Instead, the man refuses, and reaffirms his life. Not in a pleading and pathetic way to cling to life, but as a realisation of his purpose. It is only in the moment Death arrives that he realises his will to live.

This idea also gives a neat contrast to Play Arcade. Play Arcade is ultimately about getting a high score, the final number at the end is what matters. Yet, life isn’t a game like Play Arcade, and so the “real” world outside the game instead has moments where the journey is highlighted more than just the “high score” at the very end.

The credits song, just like Finding Paradise, is also extremely relevant for the core themes of the series.

“I don’t know what’s real, if an ending’s ever good enough” combined with “how many more decades, would an end for us be satisfied?” paint a picture of endings, no matter what they are, can’t be everything.

An ending can’t be good enough, can’t be enough satisfaction for a chapter in your life to last decades. Deep down, it’s them being together that is right, and no matter how that ends for our protagonists there’s no escaping or denying that simple fact.

We Have to Learn to Let Things Go

A line first featured in the credits song of Finding Paradise, the games invariably feature the idea of letting go, or being held back.

The series aims to strike a balance, though. In the lyrics of that original song Faye sings “As we dream and as we grow, we have to learn to let things go”, but immediately follows with “But let the memories never fade”.

The idea is that letting go doesn’t mean forgetting. Letting go doesn’t mean invalidating that which you let go.

Once again, we’re back to thinking about journeys and endings, fiction and reality. In the same way we can fake something to discover our reality, and that we can enjoy the journey as much as the destination, we can also let go without forgetting.

It’s an inclusive philosophy that forces one to address every aspect of their life with sincerity. It doesn’t allow for cop-outs and excuses, but brings your life into focus as every moment is, somewhere along the line, real.

Ultimately the Beach Episode wraps up this idea by having the player let go for Eva. This is a smart choice, since the “reveal” of her partners’ death was done years ago in the bonus episodes and the 2 main games that followed. We have known for a while that he’s gone, so the story doesn’t put that information on a pedestal.

This is a game about what you do after, how you deal with it, and how to best reflect on the past of it.

One Game to Go

Of course, the story isn’t quite over. We still have The Last Hour of an Epic To The Moon RPG next year which doubtless will tie up some loose ends about the creation of the technology Sigmund Corp use, and who the simulation was made for in an “ultimate purpose” sense.

But, even without that (and knowing that many questions will be deliberately left unanswered) the Beach Episode will always serve as an incredible encapsulation of the themes of the previous games.

From letting go, to layers of reality, to our memories simply being “the fiction we tell ourselves”, the Beach Episode is a masterclass in thematic storytelling and a brilliant way to express this philosophy on reality.