0
0
Nearly a decade has passed since Ubisoft’s Child of Light was first released. While the 2014 unique action-platformer-role-playing game is rightly remembered as one of the greatest indie game classics, it was anything but indie by definition. Rather, Child of Light was a creation of Ubisoft Montreal, a well-supported studio that was better known at the time for its usual fare of AAA blockbusters like Far Cry 4 and Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag.
Child of Light was indie at heart however, through and through. While the game’s high-budget development pedigree shines through in its presentation and general level of polish, Child of Light beams brightly with the kind of inspiration that no amount of resources can buy.
What makes Child of Light special?
The story of Child of Light is, as you might be able to guess, the stuff of fairy tales. It begins with princess Aurora waking in the strange yet familiar land of Lemuria. She soon meets an endearing firefly named Igniculus who becomes her closest companion. The pair then encounters the Lady of the Forest, who informs Aurora that the only way to return to her home in Austria is through a magic mirror stolen by The Queen of the Night, Umbra, who has also stolen Lemuria’s Sun, Moon and Stars. The Lady of the Forest also grants Aurora a vision of home. It’s not a pleasant one though, with her father, the Duke, taken ill and a flood ravaging the kingdom.
From there Aurora and an ever-growing company of allies set off on a quest to save both Lemuria and Austria. While I won’t spoil the rest of the story for you, let’s say it involves courage, betrayal, despair, unrequited love, a traveling circus, miserly mice, and a bittersweet ending.
But the first thing a player will notice about the game is its graphics. Simply put, Child of Light is visual poetry in motion. The game’s graphical style is imitative of hand-painted watercolor. Not only is this the perfect medium to communicate the storybook feel that pervades Child of Light, but it also ties into one of the game’s major plot elements, that being the dreamlike quality of Lemuria. This can particularly be seen in protagonist Aurora’s perpetually flowing hair, something the developers did to “give the impression of being awake in an underwater dream.”
The game’s music is equally enchanting, featuring a soundtrack that is positively brimming with emotion, is richly evocative in almost all of its moments, and is honestly one of the best video game OSTs of the last decade.
The kind of audiovisual storytelling in Child of Light is not as common as it ought to be, given that video games are a visual medium first and foremost. Not only is Child of Light more than just a pretty face, but it is a marriage of visuals, sound, narrative and atmosphere that makes the game so much more than the sum of its deeply inspired parts. Oh, and the game is a pretty novel blend of side-scrolling exploration and turn-based JRPG-style combat to boot.
Will we ever see Child of Light II?
Child of Light was a breath of fresh air for the industry. Yet here we are, years later, and it has never gotten a sequel.
In an interview a few years back, the game’s creative director Patrick Plourde said that Child of Light II is unlikely to happen as it’s not the type of game Ubisoft wants to make anymore. Later Plourde revealed that at least a partial design document had been drawn up, and that Child of Light II was going to be a “more operatic, slightly more adult” prequel drawing inspiration from the ballet Swan Lake. With much of the team behind the original Child of Light having since departed Ubisoft, it’s very unlikely we’ll ever see that game. And maybe it’s for the best—to capture lightning in a bottle is one thing, to do it twice is another.
