Oh yes. It was the bit in the movie where you leap from one spar of a broken bridge to another, and try to avoid thinking of the drop beneath you. I buckled up. I checked the carabiner. I decided to trust the line. I leapt. I swung on the rope. And then–
Jusant reviewPublisher: Don’t NodDeveloper: Don’t NodPlatform: Played on Xbox Series XAvailability: Out 31st October on PC, Xbox Series X/S and PS5.
Now. I could have swung across the gap and connected with the other part of the bridge. No problem. In the bold sweep of difficult things that Jusant asks you to do while climbing, this was not actually that tricky – it just looked singularly dramatic. But there I was, suspended on a line above miles of buffeted nothingness, and I saw the bridge and its handholds and the safety and progress it represented. But from this angle I could also see something below me. A cleft in the rock. A lacuna, as my neurologist would say. A gap. And in that gap I glimpsed the outline of a tall building disappearing into shadow, a building that almost seemed made of shadow as much as it was made of rock. My game brain said: optional detail. It said: nice to have. But something else in my brain said: church. Pretty church. Interesting church.
Church, yes – and yet it was so far down, so much of a risk. And that bridge above me with its easy holds… Easy progress…?
It’s not important to tell you that I got to the church eventually, or even to tell you about what I found in it. It was indeed optional stuff, nice to have. What’s important about this moment was that I wanted to get to that church so much. I needed to. Not because I’m a completionist. I’m not. I wasn’t really playing a game by this point, or at least the part of my mind that wanted to get to the church wasn’t playing a game. It was so much purer than that. I was compelled to visit this magical half-hidden thing that people had made and that I had glimpsed. I couldn’t live with the feeling of having passed it by. I’m not a completionist. This isn’t completionism. It’s something else. Again and again, Jusant compels me.
Jusant is a climbing game, and I think it’s a particularly rich one if you love the idea of climbing, the rarified, oxygen-poor realm of climbing, but haven’t done much of the real stuff yourself. If your mind buzzes when you hear jangly, ropy words like “belay” and “carabiner” and “cam”, if you thrill to the thought of a climb with a lot of exposure, of a satisfying “problem” to “top out”, if you go to sleep whispering names like Bonington or Honnold, this is game for you. It’s the game for me.