Why Crossroads Elegy was actually... pretty darn great

[Guest jeffpeng]

[SPOILER MINEFIELD AHEAD]
Pease do not read this if you haven’t played Episode 3 but still plan to - which you definitely should.

Preface

It should be self-explanatory that this post/article is very much an opinion piece. As such some of my views might not align with yours. This is normal for the human race and not inherently a bad thing. If you find yourself disagreeing with me - which is very likely - you are welcome to share your reasoning on why, but also welcome to remember that both you and I are equally part of the earlier mentioned human race and should argue accordingly.

I gave myself some good time with Episode 3, and I gave writing this article some good time as well. Crossroads Elegy is a difficult piece to form an opinion about, and as such probably deserves more than a few paragraphs. From the title you can probably already anticipate that my feelings towards Episode 3 are mostly positive, but I really want to make a case why.

What wasn’t great

To get those points out of the way let’s deal with the three major points that reflected less than ideal with a lot of players here on the forums - me included.

For once there are the Timberwolves which do have issues and are something one can argue about. It probably took most players a few deaths to figure out these weird behaving beasts, and that their AI isn’t as polished yet as many would have liked - although that situation got a lot better with recent patches.

Then there is the fetch quest for Father Tom. I personally wouldn’t have minded gathering more things to actually help people directly, but collecting a rather large sum of things because an ominous blizzard is rolling in felt … arbitrary. This could have been done better in my opinion.

And finally carrying home three more survivors was basically hammering down a point already made (what point I’ll allude to later). Where I could forgive Astrid carrying a woman on her back for several kilometers as a necessity to tell a story, Astrid carrying three more survivors rather large distances for basically no other reason than to give the player something to do …. I wasn’t a fan.

I feel like all of these points have been discussed ad nauseum already (among others by myself) so I would like to focus the majority of this post on …

 

What was great

And there are quite a few more to mention. I’ll leave Molly and Gwen (the first survivor) for last, since I have some theories and controversy about those. Instead I’ll start with the things that are relatively clear and which I found amazing. Forgive me that there is no particular order to this.

 

Pleasant Valley is actually alive

My biggest gripe with my least favorite region in the game wasn’t that its weather is plain horrible, or that the distances were too far for too little loot. My biggest gripe with Pleasant Valley was that it seemed “empty”. This was probably due to the fact that it is so darn huge, but nevertheless sometimes I felt like the biggest map in the game had the least amount of things happening on it.

Crossroads Elegy changed that - even for Survival Mode. Thompsons Crossing, despite being just a few more houses, makes its part of the map so much more interesting. The crashed plane tells a story that intrigues to know more about and is an impressive - yet shocking - sight all by itself. Just adding Molly’s Barn made those empty fields “fuller”. And the few but fine adjustments to terrain made the map make a lot more sense.

But in the actual Story Mode, with all the side quests and people in it, the burning plane looming over everything and the smoke rising from the bonfire in the distance, Pleasant Valley is actually vibrant and alive like no other map in Story Mode so far. Like a stage that finally has actors on it.

 

Timberwolves … wait what?

Right, we had that before in the not so great section. And I’m having it again in the actually great section. Because while the execution wasn’t perfect, the concept is actually pretty amazing. 

Think about it: normal wolves are actually rather meek creatures. Even when they find you (or you them) in greater numbers, most of the time walking away or lighting a fire is a rather reliable strategy to avoid them. For experienced players it really takes them being bolder than they should be or the wolves having the jump on you from behind a hill to actually make them a threat. The other creatures in the game that actually are equipped to fight you are even easier evaded.

Not so Timberwolves! These beasts are not to be trifeled with. You can avoid them to some extend, but once they see you there is no easy way around confrontation. This makes them a threat you cannot “game” away, which is something so far only one thing provided in The Long Dark: weather. Even more: combat with Timberwolves is interactive and actually requires more skill than clicking a mouse button real fast (or holding it down real hard).

But why is this actually a good thing? Yes, Timberwolves need more work to really shine, but the concept brings back the terror and cunning I once associated with normal wolves before I learned how to manipulate them into walking meat bags. And I for one am happy about an adversary I have to respect.

 

The Plane Crash

Most people never have to witness a disaster such as this, and I am glad for them. I did. Not a plane crash, but a high speed train that derailed and cost over a hundred people their lives, and it happened right at my doorstep. The sight of train carts torn apart like burst cans of soda is a scenery I will never forget. (For those curious look up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eschede_derailment)

Something about the crashed plane at Skeeter’s Ridge reminded me of that, while the plane on top of TWM did not. I wondered what that was, and soon realised that it wasn’t even the people themselves (which I gladly did not get to witness at the age of 16), but the things that belonged to those people scattered all across the place. The people at Hinterland nailed that with an eerie accuracy. While this in itself really isn’t a great thing to behold, it goes to show that it doesn’t take amazing dialogues or huge graphical detail to tell a story that hits home, but to project a feeling, a state of mind into the player that touches them. Maybe this resonated more with me than with others, but I felt that it was very well done … in a horrifying way.

 

The soundtrack

The original soundtrack of The Long Dark is an iconic piece of art that is rivaled by few other games out there in how much it connects with the game being played. That the designers actually chose to replace it for Episode Three was probably a more courageous move than most realize. But they kinda did it again. I think everyone has their opinion about which soundtrack they liked better, but one cannot objectively argue the new soundtrack with its many instrumentalizations - which are actually recorded music - is not amazingly well done.

I’m personally on the side that will hold TLDs iconic original soundtrack in the highest of regards and as such will probably always prefer it to anything else, but that doesn’t keep me from acknowledging that Crossroads Elegy’s soundtrack fits the setting and tone of the episode masterfully and deserves its own spot among great game soundtracks.

 

Father Tom 

I know religion is a tough topic to touch upon, and for very good reasons. There probably isn’t anything as personal and private as anyone's relationship with religion or the lack thereof. As such I found it not only courageous that Hinterland did it here, but also impressive that they did it in a so dignified way.

If it had to be a rosary to give to Astrid? We can argue about that if you want, but for me it was just a token of faith, not a token of a particular belief. It was the only hint at Christianity Father Tom gave us directly, while he himself was just a man of whatever deity you would cast your faith upon in trying times. In my experience even and especially those shunning faith the most tend to find it when their need is greatest. And that’s exactly what Father Tom reflects.

Also was Father Tom the first truly alive character we got to interact with. I admit his radius of movement was limited, but his animations seemed natural enough to see that motion capture equipment being put to good use. Especially that moment when he draws the map to the new mine …. All of that hit home. For that I can even forgive him insisting three times I was a survivor from the plane crash. Speaking of the new mine ….

 

The new mine

I loved it. The atmosphere, the scenery, working with the water… everything. If I had to pick one interior that best depicted the haunting flair of industry in decay this would be it by a longshot.

Putting this riddle at the end of the episode was a nice niche way to actually break out of the standard survival routine for once, but focussing the player onto something that felt more like from an adventure game than actually The Long Dark. And while I like the game for what it is, it was a welcome change in pace and style. If anyone asked me: yes, I want more of that in Story Mode, and more of those haunted places in the game in general.

 

The cliffhanger at the end 

…. was just amazing. Nothing to add.

 

Astrid’s voice acting

There also isn’t much to say except that Jennifer Hale was and is amazingly well cast as Astrid, and with so much more Astrid being in Episode Three that decision really bears fruit. It was probably the scene in the Radio Tower when Astrid laughs about Mackenzie being actually alive that I thought “This is really well done voice acting”. Go Jennifer!

 

The actual story behind the story

The following three sections only make sense in concert, and rely heavily on interpretation. This means …. They might be plain wrong. But if I am not wrong here (or maybe despite me being wrong) there is something pretty deep and intelligent going on behind the scenes that makes Crossroads Elegy deserving to be recognised as one of the most clever and subtle examples of metaphoric storytelling we’ve seen in a game.

And even if all of what I conjure up seems bullocks to you, that’s okay for me. Just that I am able to concoct something so fantastic is reason enough for me to put Gwen and Molly in the “actually great” category. Even…. if maybe I’m just filling in plot holes. But I don’t believe I do.

 

Gwen

Let’s fast forward to the goodbye from Father Tom and the burden he sees weighing on us. The moment he said that I actually shouted out “ *insert profanity* I knew it”. To me this was the confirmation that Gwen wasn’t actually about Gwen, but about some form of burden Astrid is carrying. Carrying Gwen back to Thompson’s Crossing is a tedious task. Not hard on the player in terms of skill, but hard on the player in terms of fun and convenience or more precisely the lack thereof. It isn’t just tiresome because Hinterland all of a sudden forgot how to make a game, it is tiresome because it is supposed to be.

Gwen is the metaphorical conduit through which the player gets to experience the burden weighing on Astrid. That Astrid is a troubled character isn’t really news to us. We know that she and Mackenzie share a tragic past, and we received a few subtle hints that both she and Mackenzie to some extent feel responsible for it. But with Crossroads Elegy we get to peer into Astrid’s state of mind - which is a troubled one. And I think we get to feel that Astrid feels the need to make up for something she feels to be or maybe even is responsible for. This may even have deeper implications into the overarching story of Wintermute.

I also thought long and hard about Gwen’s voice lines, that she just wants it to be over, and that there is no “thank you” in there. There is an overall tone of hopeless desperation to the entire thing - notably at the polar opposite of Father Tom - and it only really makes sense once you factor in ….

 

Molly

When you think my thoughts on Gwen were a stretch you’re in for a ride with Molly.

If we take Molly for what she appears to be at face value she is a very vague character that has a few too many issues to be comfortable with. A hard woman, yet capable of compassion, that is strong and rugged because that’s what life demanded of her to be, but lacking the appreciation she deserves for that and herself. Molly apparently felt diminished by her husband in particular and feels diminished by men in general. This not only brought her to let her husband being killed by wolves despite having the power to prevent it - a fact she seems to regret, but not enough to feel remorse - but also led her on a homicidal rampage against the Blackrock prison escapees. 

Is that really all there is to Molly? Maybe it is, and that makes her a not half bad character to tell a story about. But I say it isn’t. I even claim that Molly … doesn’t exist. Not really, at least.

This is a bit of a throwback to Episode one (after redux) and two. I always felt that Methuselah was a figment of Mackenzies own psyche trying to process what was happening to him. As such it wasn’t much of a surprise that nobody except Mackenzie saw him, and that he would miraculously appear in places he had no business in. Or did you never wonder how he got down the rope before you did? Magic old man parachute?

Now doesn’t it appear a bit strange and invented that all phone lines connect to each other, but Astrid is the only one picking up? Isn’t it a bit too lucky that Molly finds Astrid in the snow in time, or that Molly conveniently kills all the Blackrock inmates before we ever get to meet any of them alive? How come we never get to see Molly after we come back to our senses? How come she apparently always knows what we are doing but doesn't lend a hand a single time?

I believe Astrid is compartmentalizing what she endured in Milton and what she is actually doing throughout the episode without us ever witnessing it. Here is what I think …. actually happened:

After making it through the tunnel with the inmates, and after her ordeal of still undisclosed nature with them, they leave her behind, and Astrid finds herself freezing on the other side. But instead of giving up, instead of “making it stop” as Gwen put it so accurately, in an instance of full dinosaur brain survival mode she makes it to the nearby farm, somehow breaks in and collapses.

Her dialogue with Molly never happens, and the entire thing about the husband is just herself reflecting her troubled relationship with Mackenzie. The dead husband in the basement …. Is a figment representing Mackenzie she believes to be dead after the plane crash, and she regrets leaving him behind. 

Molly’s phone calls are on one side a vehicle to give the player hints what to do, but on the other side can also be interpreted as things Astrid unconsciously knows or at least suspects, such as there must be a key to the basement that might hold a weapon, that it would be a good idea to check the trunk of a car that caught her attention, or to maybe check out that big bass radio tower. They also represent the bicameral dialogue Astrid is having with herself, trying to justify her actions, and coping with the guilt she feels towards Mackenzie.

The inmates actually fall victim to Astrid carrying out her righteous yet unethical vengeance upon them. Something she regrets doing enough to compartmentalise it, but not enough to feel remorse for as she doesn’t judge Molly for it. We never witness this part, since it isn’t really Astrid doing these things, but actually Molly, the unappreciated, diminished and violated woman that lives inside of her and simply had enough of it.

And it is also no coincidence that right after Astrid finds the presumably last Blackrock inmate in front of the radio tower and then listens to Mackenzie’s radio transmission, proof that he is still alive, Molly calls one last time, to bid farewell, and to remark that she, as the murderous person that she is, hopes she never gets to meet Mackenzie. The guilt of leaving him behind is no longer necessary, and the inmates that inflicted so much hardship upon her are dealt with. Astrid realizes that Mackenzie is one of the good guys, and also that vengeance cannot be the way moving forward. She doesn’t need Molly anymore and as such leaves her behind to move on. Move on to finish her mission, and move on to find Mackenzie.

 

What this all means

I’ve gone out on a limb big time here, and I know that this interpretation is pretty far fetched. I also know that even if my interpretation should turn out correct that this is probably too much smoke and mirrors for a lot of people. But to me it seems @Raphael van Lierop is not the type of character interested in telling plain and simple stories. Implementing his very own Moby Dick in Episode 2 is proof enough of that in my opinion.

I think what we got to play was a very interesting peek into the psyche of a character as grey and torn as everyone who actually had to endure hardship in their lives, and delivered in a way that is so subtle and “noir” that we hardly ever realised it was happening. If that really was the ambition of Episode Three there actually aren’t enough words to commend Hinterland for the sheer bravery to attempt and for the most part succeed at something this … profound.

Also again: there still is the very likely possibility that I got literally everything wrong… in which case I hope you still liked my probably rather unique point of view and attempt to make sense of something that very much invites interpretation and speculation, which - again - is enough for me to really put the “Great Stuff” stamp on Gwen, Molly … and everything in between.

 

Conclusion

I can see how Episode Three: Crossroads Elegy might not hit the right note with everyone, and that it isn’t a perfect work - but in my opinion a work of art nonetheless. 

We got to see innovative gameplay, even if some of it worked better than others. We got to see all the time we waited finally paying off, maybe for some more than others, and maybe for some that just came too late, although I hope people can appreciate the work that went into making this - basically for free. We got to listen to another chapter of a unique and original story, something becoming exceedingly rare in a time everything is a reboot of a remake of an adaptation of a story told a hundred times, even if maybe to understand it all you had to listen a bit too close for some tastes. We got to see probably as much content in this one episode as in Episode I & II combined, even if some of that was achieved by stretching the whisky with a bit of water, but then again that's how a gentleperson prefers their beverage.

To me Episode Three delivered more than I expected it to. I personally was basically done with Story Mode, and actually blown away by how much I liked Crossroads Elegy, and I hope I could convey to you why. I also hope you understand why at this point my hopes for Episode 4 & 5 couldn't be higher.

In the end everyone has their own opinion, and that is not only fine, but a necessity of culture. But maybe this really long text could persuade one or two people to see the same greatness in Crossroads Elegy that I did. And maybe one or two people will go and revisit Episode Three and take another, closer look at it. I think it deserves it.

Thank you for reading (a lot).  

Edited November 11, 2019 by jeffpeng
Typos

[RegentRelic]

Gwen isn't the only one whos name is a reference. there's Milton most likely john Milton a fifteenth century author and the name of the last chapter of episode one, paradise lost is his most famous work. Methuselah is Methuselah from Genesis, which in Hebrew means the man of the spear. The Hebrew word for possessor or man of is Cain. Cain killed Lamech bringing death into the world shortly after paradise lost. Good job hinterland for that one. Jerimiah is most likely Jerimiah the lost or weeping prophet from the book of Jeramiah. Mathis could be either mantodao which is Greek translated to Mathis or mantis which means False prophet or dangers prophet or it could be the German boys name Mathis which means gift of god. Great bear island could be a reference to the great bear forest in Canada. I'll tell you if I can think of any more. All the prisoner names save it be Mathis and Hobbs are hinterland employees.

[RegentRelic]

Black rock could be a reference to Black rock prison by Fernando Trujillo Sanz but, I haven't read this series so I can't back that up in other way but the title.

[Hilayla]

Nice job piecing together the Fight Club aspect of Molly/Astrid. I like it. Even my overactive imagination didn't take me there. I enjoyed your review.