The following article will contain spoilers for Brothers: a Tale of Two Sons. I would encourage you to play the game before reading my review. To complete the game is anywhere from 3-5 hours.
Brothers: a Tale of Two Sons came out in 2013 and that was the first time I played it. What has stuck with me with that playthrough were the emotions I felt playing it. Fast forward to the year 2025 and I picked the game back up to see if I was still as moved as I was back then.
Before I get into the tale of two playthroughs it is very important to realize where I was in life during those moments. In 2013, I had just graduated college and had started my first job as a teacher, living with a roommate, and playing a lot of video games in my spare time. The year 2025 is very different. I am happily married, with two sons of my own, am no longer a teacher, and rarely play video games.
The game itself has a very simple concept. You play as two brothers who are on a mission to find the cure for their ailing father. The left analog stick and trigger controls the older brother, while the right analog stick and trigger controls the younger brother. Along the way you encounter many different puzzles/enemies that must be solved/defeated, while controlling each brother simultaneously. Overall the puzzles themselves are not very difficult as it is very obvious this is a game focused on the story telling.
2013: I was captivated by the simple controls and was super excited to see how this game would use controlling both brothers on the same controller.
2025: Surprisingly, I was still captivated by the simple controls, and felt myself trying to remember if the puzzles ever got difficult, and how long would it take me to beat this game.
It opens up with the little brother sitting at a grave site and we get a flashback of the boy and his mom caught at sea during a storm and the mother drowns. Even though no words are spoken during this game, it is felt immediately that the younger brother feels it’s his fault. Due to the nature of what he witnessed, we find out very quickly in the early moments of the game that he is afraid of deep water.
As the intro to the game progresses, we come to find out that the brother’s father is deathly ill and only the water from a magical tree will save him. Thus the tale begins!
2013: The younger son I connected to right away. I felt for him. I wanted him to succeed and remember thinking that if I could solve a puzzle using the younger brother the majority of the time, I was going to do it!
2025: This time around, I still felt sorry for the younger brother, but found myself thinking the goal was to solve the puzzles as quickly as I could using whatever brother would help speed that process up.
As the brothers start their journey, they run into a troll who is weeping. On both playthroughs, I will be honest, I had no idea why the troll was so sad at first. The older brother shows him a map of the tree, and the troll helps them navigate some rocky terrain until he points and directs the brothers to enter a cave.
Entering the cave, you solve a bunch of puzzles and eventually find a trapped female troll in a cage. Receiving the key, you free her and she of course helps the brothers to escape the cave. Not before they, of course, battle a few larger trolls on the way out. Near the end of the escape this is when it’s revealed this is the sad troll's wife! After saving her, the trolls direct the two brothers to the next adventure.
2013: Upon finishing the first leg of the journey, I remember thinking that I was going to help as many people as I could. Again, even though English words aren’t spoken in this game, helping the trolls seemed to lift the little brother's spirit and I wanted him to feel joy!
2025: I enjoyed playing that leg of the journey because I am back in my gaming mode. We are about an hour in and I have had no interruptions yet. This has to be a new record for me!
This is where the game starts to get a little darker and really shows the creativity of the team who made this game. The brothers battle a pack of wolves during the night using fire on a branch. After they get past this part, they stumble upon a man who is getting ready to hang himself. I do not remember this from my first playthrough, but it is obvious you can either choose to ignore him, or quickly go save him. After saving him, the brothers stumble upon an inventor who shares with them a hang glider as a way to navigate to the next area.
This next part is easily my favorite part of the whole game. The two brothers must navigate a mountain pass filled with dead giants who just fought in a war. The level design here is one of the best I have ever played. Some key moments that stick out to me: having to chop a giant's leg off to get past an area and using a giant crossbow to shoot a giant in the head to move his entire body out of the way.
2013: When I got to the dead giants on the battlefield, I remember thinking with everything else that has happened so far, one of these giants is not going to be fully dead. I was on edge constantly, very worried that something was going to happen to one of these brothers during this level.
2025: When I saw the battlefield level, my face lit up as all the memories of this level design came rushing back. Now that I didn’t have the constant fear of one of the brothers dying, I was able to truly appreciate how incredible this part of the game is, and I caught myself thinking how traumatic it must be for the younger brother seeing a giant take a huge arrow to the head!
The brothers then come across some tribesman ready to sacrifice a young lady. After rescuing her and escaping, they get in a boat and row across a small body of water. The brothers and young lady must defeat an invisible snow giant and after this the young lady is slowly seducing the older brother. The younger brother tries to warn him but it is too late. The young lady is actually a spider who traps them in her underground cave. After a battle with the she-spider, which involves ripping her legs off, the older brother gets stabbed in the stomach. The two brothers limp away from the battle scene only to miraculously end up at the tree that has the life saving water.
The younger brother is encouraged by his injured older brother to climb the tree himself and retrieve the water. Upon returning to the older brother, the younger brother is grief stricken to find him dead. Again, you can feel the younger brother feel like it is his fault, just as he felt that with his mother.
2013: Tears. At this moment in the game I am a mess. Having to bury the older brother made me think of my own older brother and how much I look up to him. I felt myself being in that moment with the younger brother and truly feeling what he was. I had to pause the game to gather myself before finishing it.
2025: No tears this time, but I did forget that you had to bury your older brother and this brought on some new emotions for me. This time around I thought of my own two sons. How the younger one loves and adores the older one so much. How he is constantly trying to copy him and join in and I pray that my younger son may never lose that love and adoration for his older brother.
Upon returning to his home, he is faced with having to cross deep water. The brother freezes up until you push the older brother's trigger. Using that strength of the now deceased older brother, the younger brother is able to face his fear and get to his father in time to save him.
2013: Fist in the air!! After everything this younger brother has gone through, he finally finds the courage to face his biggest fear. I loved the idea of having you use the older brother's trigger as if he is still there pulling the younger brother along.
2025: I still found myself proud of the younger brother having conquered his fear and forgot that the way to do it was using the older brother’s trigger. Still loved that concept of it and really enjoyed that at the end of the game, the younger brother achieves the goal of saving his father.
The second time I played through this game, I didn’t have as many emotions as I did the first time for good reason as I remembered enough to not be caught off guard. However, I will say it still moved me and made me feel enough to enjoy the game. Overall, Brothers: a Tale of Two Sons is a great game. Even though the puzzles may be simple, the journey and development of the younger brother is enough to truly enjoy this game.
I give it a 4 out of 5.
