The horror of 2020 was the stillness of confinement. The grace of the Foot of the Mountains is the stillness of perspective. In traditional holiday narratives—think It’s a Wonderful Life or A Christmas Carol —the protagonist is lifted up . They see the world from above. They gain perspective through elevation.
Some things endure. The stone. The cold. The foot of the mountain, where the broken and the tired and the grieving can rest. Foot Of The Mountains 2 - Holidays Special 2020 ends not with a reward, but with a list. The credits roll over a slow pan of the dawn light hitting the peaks. There are no names of famous actors or designers. Instead, the credits read:
The holidays have been stripped of their spectacle. There is no feast for twelve. There is a single ration bar, a tin of sardines, and a bottle of whiskey that you’ve been saving since March. There is no family drama around a crowded table—only a video call that buffers every thirty seconds, a frozen image of your mother’s face, a wave that is also a goodbye. Foot Of The Mountains 2 -Holidays Special 2020-...
As the year turns, you do not cheer. You exhale. The mountains do not change. They do not know it is 2021. They do not care. And for the first time in twelve months, that indifference does not feel cruel. It feels like a promise.
The foot of the mountains belongs to everyone. To be at the foot of the mountains during the holidays of 2020 is to accept a specific kind of geometry. You are neither in the valley of commerce (the malls, the office parties, the frantic gift-wrapping) nor on the dangerous, icy heights of isolation. You are on the slope . The liminal space. The threshold. The horror of 2020 was the stillness of confinement
The “Holidays Special” arrives not as a celebration, but as a shelter.
The game’s final sequence is not a boss battle or a chase scene. It is December 31st, 11:59 PM. You are sitting by the fire. The wood pops. The clock on the wall ticks. You have no champagne. You have no kiss at midnight. You have only the view out the window: the silhouette of the range against a star-filled void. They see the world from above
But you don’t press the key. You set the controller down. You look out your own window—at the building across the street, at the fire escape, at the single stubborn star visible through the city smog.