Bugsnax is proof that careful game and narrative design are more compelling than flashy graphics.

I started playing Bugsnax half out of curiosity and half out of spite. There’d been a fair amount of buzz around the game, including some discussion on the Bombcast, but I wasn’t sure quite what it was and I wanted to see for myself. I also was, and remain, annoyed at Sony for only releasing the PS5 version on PlayStation Plus but I nabbed it there anyway and once I got my PS5 and finished Astro’s Playground I decided to show Sony that I could not be deterred from using my subscription even if they placed part of it behind a $500 paywall that most people still can’t even buy if they want to 2 months after launch.

All that is to say that I went into Bugsnax with some interest but also some cynicism and feeling a bit standoffish. I was ready to peevishly say “well who cares if it is PS5 only on PS Plus, it sucks anyway” and move on. Instead I platinumed it. I wouldn’t say that Bugsnax is my favorite game that came out in 2020 but it easily slots into my personal top 10. I started playing it at a time when I wanted a chill game that straddles the line between relaxing and engaging, which Bugsnax does perfectly. Bugsnax does not, in fact, suck. Instead it’s one of the best games to ever launch free on PS Plus, and the kind of slightly rough around the edges but still very fun game that shows why it's so frustrating that the big third party publishers don't invest in smaller properties anymore. Bugsnax reminds me of the best parts of the fifth and sixth console generations, when quirky little games were released alongside the big budget blockbusters and mainstream gaming was bursting with creativity and weirdness.

It’s not actually that hard to describe what Bugsnax is. It’s an adventure game with some of the trappings of a Pokemon style monster collector. You play a journalist who travels to the mysterious Snaktooth island to interview an explorer and the members of her expedition. Your airship is wrecked by a giant creature upon your arrival and you find out that the explorer is missing, all the members of her expedition have scattered and hate each other, and in addition to the members of that expedition, who are Muppet like creatures called Grumpuses (as are you and your boss) the island is inhabited by a bunch of creatures called Bugsnax, which are bugs crossed with various snacks. So a spider made out of fries is a Fryder and a sandwich crossed with a centipede is a sandopede.

Your job in the game is to gather the Grumpuses back to the main town, do sidequests for them, and eventually, with their help, unravel the mystery of the island and what happened to Lizbert, the explorer you went there to interview. Much of this revolves around catching specific Bugsnax at the behest of the various characters, who won’t go back to town until you get them what they want. The Bugsnax are the main source of food on the island and they transform the body parts of the Grumpuses that eat them, and much of the game consists of catching bugsnax, feeding them to various Grumpuses and transforming their bodies to make them look ridiculous. You catch the Bugsnax using a variety of tools that are doled out over the course of the game, though it never gets particularly complex. You might have to use bait to lure a Bugsnax to a trap, or trick a Bugsnack into fighting with another Bugsnack so it gets stunned so you can catch it in a net, or use a springboard to launch your trap into the air and catch the Bugsnack in mid-flight, then use your grapple gun to retrieve the trap before the snack gets free. That kind of thing.

Because every Bugsnack has a specific route they use to traverse the environment and because there are specific environmental tools that you need to utilize to catch all but the most simple (where you can just place the trap and have them walk into it) this is much more of a puzzley adventure game than it first appears. There’s no real randomness to the encounters and while you can cause chaos by luring a bunch of hostile Bugsnax into the same area and making them fight each other, the gameplay is really about observing the individual creatures and their environment and then coming up with a strategy to break down their defenses and trap them. “How do I douse the fire on this Bugsnack so I can trap it without burning the trap up? What surfaces can I use to place a trip wire so I can knock this flying Bugsnack down and scoop it up?” That kind of thing. There are also some more traditional adventure game elements like video diaries to collect and even a few straight up puzzles to solve, but most of the gameplay is about figuring out simple puzzles to get the Bugsnax to do what you need them to so that you can capture them.

What makes the game so good is the combination of strong writing, fantastic aesthetics, and small environments that you get to know intimately. Bugsnax’s Grumpuses are all archtypes of one kind or another. You have astrong, stoic farmer. A vicious gossip. A shady businessGrumpus and so on. But they’re all well written versions of those archtypes and well voice acted, and are all very distinct from one another. It’s not the most sophisticated or nuanced video game story, but the characters all have motivations and insecurities and relationships with one another, which automatically puts it in the upper echelons of video game storytelling. The game also combines a cartoony kid’s show aesthetic (with the Muppety grumpuses and silly looking snax) with elements of body horror and questions about ethical consumption that make for a delightful juxtaposition. Turning the Grumpuses into food-looking nightmare creatures by hand feeding them insects makes for a delightful juxtaposition.

What impressed me most about the game, though, was how compact it is and how well that works for the game design. There are 100 different species of Bugsnax, some appearing only in the rain or at night but most out all of the time, and each only appears in one or at most two areas and between one and five locations in those areas. Because each area is small you soon learn where every snak is, meaning that it’s easy to find them when one of the Grumpuses asks you to get one or if you need to use one snak against another. It’s an intricate clockwork design that never wastes your time but allows for interesting puzzle combinations and lots of variety within small spaces. At a time when it semes that most developers are focused on making games as big as possible Bugsnax makes a strong case for compactness and efficient use of space. The game reminded me of Banjo Kazooie, not just because the characters and levels look like they could have been inspired by that N64 classic but because that was another game with compact levels that felt vast because of their density and variety.

In the end what stands out to me about Bugsnax is how well designed everything is. It’s not the best looking game and the physics and especially Bugsnax behavior can be a little wonky at times, but every design decision makes sense and comes together to create something greater than the sum of its parts. From the way the narrative and aesthetics mix to create a world that’s both welcoming and unnerving to the puzzle designs to the way the geography of the levels seems designed around the Bugsnax themselves, there’s virtually nothing I’d change except to apply a few more coats of polished. In most games I burn out well before the end and have to force myself to finish, but I did everything in Bugsnax and was left wanting more.

It doesn’t hurt that Bugsnax has one of the most pitch perfect endings to a game I can remember. A lot of people have called it dark and disturbing and I can understand that, but I found it a mix between amusing and heartwarming. It ties everything together (except for one gaping plot hole) and creates a satisfying and intense climax in a game that’s mostly pretty laid back and low key.

Bugsnax is an example of how games don’t need huge budgets and fancy tech to provide meaningful experiences. By being carefully thought through and having a design that’s carefully integrated so that each part supports the others the game shines brighter than many titles made with 20 times the budget. I’m glad that weird games like this that commit to their premises and offer up something outside the genre norms still exist and I really hope that they make the teased sequel.