Game Informer readers! I’m excited to return to work today after seven amazing weeks of paternity leave to learn the ropes of parenting alongside my beautiful wife and newborn baby girl. I’m approximately 37 minutes into my shift at the time of writing and counting every second until I’m off and can give all my free time to my daughter. That’s because I’ve already begun her journey into video games. First by osmosis, but more recently, by getting her hands on the controller. You might say six weeks old is too young, and to that I say: Good luck to your kid trying to beat my daughter in Super Smash Bros. one day!
As a new father who also games, I thought I’d share the knowledge I’ve learned about gaming with an infant these past few weeks, specifically, the worst games to play with a newborn at home. Everybody is different, but if you’re at home with a newborn, I’d caution against playing these particular titles.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
Before you write me off for putting this on this list, please understand I thoroughly enjoyed my 40-plus hours with it. That doesn’t mean it’s a great game to play with a newborn at home. If you haven’t played it, skip this entry because I will spoil the beginning. The central premise behind Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is that every year, the mysterious Paintress paints a new number on a massive monolith in the world. That number has decreased by one yearly since the Paintress’ start, and at the beginning of the game, we witness something known as the Gommage.
The Gommage happens every year, and when it does, anyone of the age currently listed on the Paintress’ monolith dies, or rather, goes the way of Peter Parker in Avengers: Infinity War. They dissipate into flakes of an ash-like substance, disappearing from the world and their loved ones forever. There’s a lot more happening, but for the purpose of this entry, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 begins with a Gommage where loved ones watch their lovers, parents, children, and friends die. It turns out holding your barely-a-few-weeks-old newborn during this scene is incredibly heartbreaking as you think about what it’d be like to be Gommage’d away from her. It was here that I realized media will make me cry a lot easier now (and I was already an easy crier before).
Doom: The Dark Ages
Though it’s not out until later this week on May 15 (though if you cough up extra money, you can jump in starting tonight, so really, it’s out today), I was lucky enough to receive a pre-release code to Doom: The Dark Ages. My excitement came crashing down about five minutes after starting the game when I realized the continuous sounds of bullets ripping flesh, shields parrying attacks, and very loud (and pretty good) metal music blaring through my speakers aren’t appreciated the same by my daughter. In fact, this cacophony of sound mixing actively goes against the calm, peaceful, serene environment my wife and I try to cultivate for her. Doom: The Dark Ages is now an exclusively headphones-on game in the LeBlanc household.
Literally Any VR Game
I don’t even have a game to list here because I never made it as far as starting one. I put on my VR headset and then realized it’s hard to use two handheld controllers while holding a child. It doesn’t help that I literally couldn’t see or hear her either, I guess.
Elden Ring
You’re probably thinking, “Ooof yeah, any game without a proper pause button would be tough with a newborn,” right now, and you’d be right. But being unable to pause mid-boss fight because my daughter needs her diaper changed isn’t why Elden Ring is on this list. No, Elden Ring straight up sucks to play when the player you summonto help you defeat one of the game’s many challenging bosses is terrible. I knew it’d be a challenge considering my daughter doesn’t understand how her hands work yet, but sheesh, she really has no clue how to dodge, parry (or even block with a shield, for that matter), or use a basic attack. She was useless as a summoned co-op partner, and considering bosses get extra health when you bring another player in, summoning my daughter to help defeat a boss was actively harder than doing it solo. Lesson learned.
Fortnite
I love Fortnite. I hate Fortnite. It is a game I can’t pull myself away from, despite the psychic damage it constantly causes me when I’m one kill away from the Victory Royale and fail to clutch it. The adrenaline spike that occurs brings me back, match after match, chasing the dub.
So let me paint you a scene: I’ve got 13 kills. My daughter has zero – that’s okay, that’s fine, I’m carrying us both quite well. I’m looting the last building in the circle. There’s one other player left, and they sneak up on me and take me out. For whatever reason, they don’t fully kill me, meaning my daughter can revive me if she can sneak over without being caught (because she’d likely not defeat this other player in a 1v1 shootout). She finally arrives, and though she’s three feet away from me in-game, she’s stuck walking into a wall. I look over in real life, and she’s gnawing on the left stick on a DualSense controller – no wonder she’s blowing it. I tell her to clutch up, get in the game, and revive me.
She ignores me completely and doesn’t even look my way. Moments later, the last enemy player stumbles upon her and takes her out. We lose. I cry. She gnaws. I do not see dubs in my future if she continues this behavior.
Final Fantasy XIII
I love Final Fantasy XIII. It is my favorite Final Fantasy. It is a game I always think about, and I desperately want Square Enix to bring it to PlayStation 5 because it is the only mainline entry in the series not available on the console. When you have a child, there’s a certain high you get from the dopamine dumps your brain is constantly delivering as you kiss your baby, cuddle her, and think about the life you hope to give her. I figured, “Why not pair those dopamine dumps with a game I love so much?”
To my annoyed surprise, it took my daughter about two hours into Final Fantasy XIII to tell me the game is just a “hallway simulator.”
I tried explaining to her that another beloved entry in the series, Final Fantasy X, is also corridor-like in its design, and nobody complains about that in the same way! She didn’t care, adding, “Yeah, but it’s Final Fantasy X.” Okay?? God forbid a father like a game about sisterhood, romance, and the inevitability of death that features incredible music, slick visuals, and a fun combat system.
