It Takes (More Than?) Two: Relationships and their impact on the broader environment by Lynne Sargent
1100 words, 5 minutes reading time
Issue 2 (Spring/Summer 2023)
Content Notes: gameplay spoilers for It Takes Two (released 2021, developed by Hazelight Studios)
Romantic relationships are thought to be personal, and private. Usually between just two people, and sacrosanct from external criticism in all but the most egregious cases of abuse. But these relationships are always placed within a larger network– pets, children, families, friends, co-workers– and within a home ecosystem made up of chores and habits, punctuated by object placement. There is no truly private, no actions that do not bleed out into the wider world, regardless of what the elder Trudeau might have said about the bedrooms of the nation (and perhaps most tragically represented by the 2020 Nova Scotia attacks). This is a difficult truth for observers and lovers alike to grapple with, but It Takes Two frankly exemplifies the networked nature of relationships, and the ways that toxic relationships can poison all they touch upon.
It Takes Two is a specifically two-player adventure game that puts players in the shoes of May and Cody, a married couple on the precipice of divorce. The stress of their unraveling relationship upsets their daughter Rose, whose tears turn May and Cody into dolls. Players then have to navigate May and Cody through a larger-and-more-magical-than-life version of their house, guided by a sentient relationship therapy book.
In the early stages of the game, May and Cody believe that to get themselves back to their normal bodies, they need to find their daughter and make her cry on them (since tears are what prompted the change in the first place). While teamwork is obviously necessary to meet this goal, with both players working together to solve puzzles, it quickly becomes very clear that teamwork on May and Cody’s part is not sufficient to meet their goal of becoming human again (spoiler alert!).
As we made our way through the game, my playing partner and I quickly became absolutely horrified with May and Cody’s initial strategy to become human again. Their strategy to make Rose cry includes a quest through the toyland of Rose’s bedroom to torture and kill their daughter’s stuffed elephant. This strategy is (unsurprisingly) successful in its goal of producing tears. But of course tears are not the solution! Despite May and Cody having a shared goal, and even though they are maintaining functioning and respectful teamwork, their daughter’s tears are simply not enough to transform May and Cody back to their human selves. At least, not when their goal is something that further harms the people and things around them. Toxic relationships ought not succeed, but too often there isn’t intervention to break the cycle. Luckily, May and Cody have sentient relationship therapy book keeping them honest and on track.
What’s really clever about this is that as you continue with a playthrough (especially if you play with an insightful partner), you begin to realize that the game was telling you this all along. In the very first level after they have been transformed by their daughter, May and Cody are placed into the Shed. The Shed plays an integral part of their escape by allowing May and Cody to use the anthropomorphized tools in the area who have become rusted from a lack of use. Both Cody and May have become negligent of their home and the tools within their home became another obstacle to tackle. May and Cody’s calculated use of objects and environments is just selfish manipulation which they are punished for until they realize they have to work not just towards their own goals, but also toward improving and healing the people and things they encounter along their quest.
In fact, the whole game is about re-integrating May and Cody into the home environment that they have neglected, the community of toys and tools, plants and heirlooms that have suffered as Rose has suffered. The acts of repairing these things (and the discomfort in the destruction of these things) is given far more primacy in the actual narrative of the game than simply working together. Although co-operative play is necessary, a relationship that is co-operative but toxic to the environment around it is very clearly held up as an unacceptable end-point. Ultimately, even when love isn’t toxic, love alone isn’t enough.
May and Cody largely repair their relationship to each other in level 5, the Snowglobe. In this level, they travel through a snowglobe that is representative of positive memories from their relationship, such as their first Christmas together. Completing this level and regaining their attraction is much better step forward than the aforementioned stuffie evisceration, but it is still insufficient. The players have two more levels to go.
The final two levels have Cody healing the garden from infection, and May putting on a concert to get back to her roots. Healing damage and promoting life and growth and celebration. Mending the external and the internal. Yes, there’s a big kiss at the end, but ultimately I don’t think the game wants us to focus on. This isn’t a Disney-ending where individuals on the precipice of divorce can simply kiss and make up, and that will make everything better. The kiss only works because May and Cody have already worked through their environment and saved (or come to better understand) the creatures there, as well as themselves, and their places within the environment of the home. The chaos of their relationship is no longer one toxic element among many. They are able to see that their single minded focus on the destruction of their relationship poisoned everything around them, including their daughter.
Although gameplay might end with a kiss, the story isn’t over until daughter Rose is rescued from the bus stop as she is trying to run away from home after blaming herself for the divorce. Rose’s stated goal is not for them to stay married but rather for them to “become friends again.” May and Cody have learned now though that their relationship with each other– while important– is not the most important focus. With this realization, they are able to ignore this ask and simply affirm their love for their daughter. By the end their relationship isn’t the focus, it’s the way their relationship affects their daughter and their enduring love for her needs no reference to their relationship–romantic or otherwise.
In the end, it doesn’t simply take two. It takes dozens: the relationship book, Rose, the tools, the squirrels, the clockwork birds, and myriad other helpful characters and items. The game shows us through May and Cody's interactions with the environment of their home and their daughter that their long-term relationship isn't just about their love and respect for one another. It’s also about the way they cultivate the world around them and see the objects and people in their lives as things whose flourishing needs to be prioritized rather than simply using them as a means to an end–whether or not that end is in the service of their relationship.