The Mental State of Darkest Dungeon

So, I had two ideas that I wanted to talk about on Darkest Dungeon. One of them was what I covered
last time, on how it could potentially mislead people into thinking it's meant to be conquered. And now,
I want to talk about how Darkest Dungeon succeeds and fails in how it handles mental health. I love 
Darkest Dungeon. But I think it's most interesting parts are where it falters. So, uh, sorry to the devs.
I promise I love your game. 

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So, mental health is a huge part of Darkest Dungeon, and it's the biggest threat to your party's 
wellbeing. Physical wounds and maladies (besides illness) will soon fade, but mental ramifications
stay for much, much longer, and can have debilitating effects. Your party members might become 
terrified of the dark, suspicious and paranoid, or so incredibly stressed, they'll suffer a heart attack and
die right there. It's perhaps the most central part of the game, so let's break it down and see how it
fares.

First, let's just look at the two main ways it handles this: stress and afflictions. Stress is a stat that
accumulates on each member as you delve into the dungeon, a number from 0-200. At 100, the 
member will have their resolve tested, and may either break down (Paranoia as an example) or come
out stronger and virtuous. These effects can be dissipated by bringing stress down in town. The other
manner it occurs in is in afflictions, that don't go away after fights. Things like being terrified of beasts,
or compulsive. They can be gotten rid of, but only at the sanitarium. 

Darkest Dungeon is a two headed beast when it comes to how it represents these things. On one
hand, the effects are real and accurate. On the other, when it comes to the aftermath of dealing with
it, that's when things get a bit more iffy.

But let's take the good first. The actual ramifications and impact of mental health is quite well shown, 
at least in my opinion. It struck me how it would often show how debilitating even benign sounding
ideas could be. Compulsive characters would check everything, to their detriment. Some people
will have issues functioning at max in certain environments or when faced with certain threats. The
ways that one's brain rubs up against the world is very real.

As well, stress is also well handled (for the most part). It slowly builds and builds as you go about
your tasks, and eventually can overtake you and severely impact your functioning in a life and death
scenario. Stress doesn't go away afterward, and you have to deal with it somehow. Often the only 
option isn't a very healthy one, but you've gotta, otherwise it'll destroy your heroes. And it never goes
away, really. Every time you make someone go in, they will get stressed and will get worse. You
can only ever try to smartly deal with it. That's pretty real.

So that sounds all peachy keen, right? Well, yeah, but there is a lot wrong with how they show mental
health in this game. While I understand that much of it is trying to keep with the medieval, macabre, 
horror theme, I can't help but seriously notice that much of how they frame dealing with mental health,
is, to put it bluntly, incorrect and plays into some rather unfortunate ideas. 

Let's start with the afflictions. Right away, my main beef with them is that they're presented as 
character flaws, moral failings, issues to be fixed. Having uncontrollable thoughts is presented on the
same level as being a "known cheat". That is a view of mental health that is quite frankly outdated and 
harmful. Someone hasn't "failed" or is a worse person because they're struggling. That isn't to say I 
have an issue with the idea of dealing with them...

What I have an issue with is how you deal with them in the game, as in, you can't often make these
things go away. You can't just go to some hospital and ask them to cure your compulsions, or fix
your attention issues. In reality, dealing with this is often a lifelong management process, where
treatment is making the issue so manageable it doesn't impact you anymore. In Darkest Dungeon
you just go to the hospital and then boom, suddenly you're all "right" again, all "proper". 

The history of mental health treatment is long and sordid, but in a nutshell, so much harm has been 
done by this mindset of "make them normal again". That normality is a hurtful lie, and we should be
accepting how people just work differently and work with them, and not just try to hide them.
Darkest Dungeon ends up saying "fix your workers, and if you can't, throw them aside". It implies
that really, all you need is a week in a hospital and you'll be right as rain. Simply put, no. That's not how
it works, and that's not how it should work.

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There also comes an issue with the conditions that result from high stress, as I mentioned earlier.
While I feel the effects are shown well, dealing with them is ridiculously too easy for my tastes. You
simply get your stress down in town and they will vanish, no lingering effects whatsoever. I hope the
issue is quite self evident. You can't just "destress" paranoia or things like that, the effects can linger
and haunt you. A night at the bar is a bandage. Not a solution.

My other primary issue is with the virtue system. I think this is great mechanically... not so much if
you're looking at it through this lens. People don't just "overcome" stress and anxiety and get better.
It's a long, hard, strenuous process with a lot of hardship and challenge. Insinuating that people can
somehow perform at their best under immense mental stress is a bit off. 

Darkest Dungeon ends up being a game that carefully shows the pains of mental health, but fails
to show the struggles to fix it properly. It sacrifices accurate portrayal for gameplay purposes, and in
the process misrepresents quite a few things. At the end of the day, the game ends up treating
mental health in a very haphazard manner, and ends up framing it as some evil failing we need to
correct. It shows it well. But it comments on it harmfully.

The Understanding of Night in the Woods

So… I finally played Night in the Woods.

You should go and play Night in the Woods before reading this, really. And perhaps a mild content 

warning if descriptions of mental illness will distress you.

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Mae hit really damn close to home for me. Like, almost uncomfortably close to home. I could talk about 

so much in this game. It just understands shit about life, and people, you know? But I want to… maybe 

get personal for a minute, and talk about Mae, or more specifically, Mae and mental health.

I’ve always been prone to dissociation (Detachment from your surroundings and emotions). Probably 

since I was fairly young, although I never realized what it was until much later in life. Hell, I do still go 

through episodes of it sometimes. Everything stops feeling real around you, and there’s just nothing to 

be done about it besides act or let it ride out. It’s always been a part of me, and honestly, likely always 

will in some way or another.

What I’m trying to say here is that this game understands it in a way, well, I’ve never seen any work do 

before.

Night in the Woods understands the detachment and isolation it brings. It’s nigh impossible for Mae to 

talk about this with people until she’s almost killed. You go the entire game not really understanding 

why she left college, why she’s having these nightmares, why she seems sociable and caring and at 

the same time standoffish and a loner. This stuff is hard to talk about. It’s embarrassing. It makes you 

vulnerable and exposed to discuss it. I’ve sat alone in bed many times wondering “what if people think 

I’m weird”, “what if they hate me”. Mae can’t articulate it. She’s afraid to. That’s an all too common 

occurrence, and the game understands this and carefully writes about it.

Night in the Woods understands the emotion this brings. Anger is a predominant one. Mae gets pissed 

off at people, pissed off at society, pissed off at herself. Why don’t people understand, why has the 

world as large thrown her to the side, why the fuck can’t she ask for help? It’s not fair, and it never was

fair. How are you supposed to explain this to people with no reference point? How are you supposed to 

expose yourself to a society that has kicked you while you’re down? How are you supposed to own up 

to your own mistakes without spiraling downwards?  It doesn’t always have answers for this. These 

are often questions simply bemoaning how terrible the world is towards people like Mae, like me, like 

so many people I know. Sometimes it all breaks, and Mae is left simply crying. Sometimes, she’s out 

of emotion to give. These are real and raw things that happen. And the greatest good in this game isn’t 

some solution to it all. It’s people that listen, and get it, and give you a shoulder to cry on and vent at.

And, well, to wrap it up: the game understands what these experiences are like. The one line that 

made me realize “no, this is real”, was Mae describing everything as “just shapes”. The world falls 

away. All sense of placement and what you think is steady and real falls away. Maybe the world turns 

into shapes and colours, for Mae. Maybe the world will start to feel like a toy set, or a stage in a play, 

where everything is a prop that doesn’t matter, for me. And what the hell are you supposed to do when 

your very emotions stop feeling real? Get some control, maybe. Maybe start kicking walls, throwing 

things. Try to speak but you can’t. Run away from any conversations, they all feel so fake anyway. 

Small things like a statue become terrifying. Maybe even be violent. Stop caring about the well being of 

your own body and hurt yourself. Beat the hell out of some kid with a baseball bat. Who cares. None of 

this matters to your head anymore. All that matters is control, trying to feel real, and survival.

...Night in the Woods understands this. It understands what it’s like to go through this. It knows how it 

looks to others, it knows how it feels in your head, it knows how hard it all is. Night in the Woods god 

damn gets it. It’s so rare that I ever see a work that approaches knowing what it’s like. It knows it’s not 

fair. It knows the impossibility of it all. And yet it also offers hope, a look into what can be, what we can 

work for. It’s filled with understanding, friendship, and love.

I’m glad I played Night in the Woods.