Save yourself! The video games casting us as helpless children

A new breed of games pits vulnerable kids against huge challenges. What does this say about how adults are facing society's problems?

Environmental and financial crises loom and we feel we have no influence. If society has already reduced us to a childlike state of weakness, isolation and vulnerability, it is perhaps no surprise that modern pop culture and technology tend towards infantilisation, and that many video games function as childish wish fulfilment. By turning us into star footballers or super space marines, they reconstruct adolescent fantasies of proficiency and heroism.

Yet some games have begun to depict a childhood experience more in tune with the current social context. These games make us play as children, and in doing so often accentuate feelings of powerlessness and fear. But they also reflect a generation of parents' worries for the future and, perhaps, an evolving understanding of how we think about children and their inner lives.