Open Roads is a game about mother and daughter, in the wake of a lot of “sad parents”

For a parent-obsessed industry – Kratos and Joel, for example – there are very few significant roles for mothers in video games. Mothers exist, but most of the time they are dead mothers, bad mothers or missing mothers; mothers who are only there for a protagonist to play with. The evolution of family relationships in video games is changing, and at least one independent design team has decided to tell a meaningful maternal story.

“There were a lot of sad parents,” Fullbright co-founder Steve Gaynor told Polygon. “They were good games, many of them. But now it’s just Mom’s time. “

Gaynor and a team of designers and writers from Fullbright are making a video game, Open roads, about a teenager and her mother. The game, scheduled for 2021, was unveiled in December and stars Keri Russel (The americans) and Kaitlyn Dever (Smart Book). Gaynor described Open roads as “a mother and daughter travel adventure game”. It is, in many ways, a Fullbright game, about exploring an environment and looking for things for a person’s story.

Image: Fullbright

But the big difference between Open roads and the first two Fullbright games, Went home and Tacoma, is that there are now two characters in space: Opal, the mother, and Tess, the daughter. “What if there was another character in the room who was experiencing these things with you?” Gaynor asked.

The opportunity, then, is in a second perspective – one that creates a significant impact on the story simply because of its presence in one space and its relationship with the other character. The players will operate as Tess on a trip with her mother, a trip that is triggered by the death of a grandmother. The things that Tess searches through belong to her grandmother and, through this process, she learns little information about the family’s past, some of which are surprising.

“You are revealing these events that were part of your family’s history, but you are also navigating your relationship with your mother, through your reactions, the dialogue you have with her and discovering these characters as much as you are discovering this story of past, ”Gaynor explained.

Image: Fullbright

Looks Open roads it’s less about the mystery behind everything Opal and Tess discover, but it focuses more on their relationship. Mystery is the background of that relationship, something to push and pull towards it.

Another big part of the story, said Gaynor, is the scenario of the 2003 era. The period of time was important to decide from a technological point of view; this is a game about a car trip, which would be totally different if you could pull a map on your smartphone. In 2003, you could still have a cell phone – but all you could do with it was make calls, play games Snake or, if you’re lucky, send text messages. “But your mother printed out the MapQuest instructions before you left,” added Gaynor.

It is also an era that looks nostalgic now, as well as strangely similar to 2021. Open roads is a game that was developed, in part, during 2020, a year that people will remember for its rampant forest fires, racial calculations and an isolation pandemic. The year will stand out as one of those important periods in our lives; now there are pre-2020 and post-2020. 2003 looked similar; being post-9/11 and at the beginning of the Iraq War, Gaynor said. “It was still a lot of ‘Support the troops’ and ‘Never forget’, which was basically the national – and international moment.”

Image: Fullbright

Gaynor called this a kind of “sad resonance” with the past that naturally emerged from the year.

“There is also that feeling of being able to draw from the moment we are in, the uncertainty, instability and feeling of public life that seem relevant to the period of the game,” said Gaynor.

Open roads is expected to be released in 2021 on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC and Xbox Series X.