I had played a game in the Monument Valley series before and even wrote a Critical Play about it, but my earlier focus was mainly on its overall design, puzzle system, and visual experience. This time, I returned to Monument Valley 2 through the lens of Shira Chess’s Play Like a Feminist. Developed by ustwo games, Monument Valley 2 is an accessible puzzle-adventure game originally designed for mobile play, with an audience that includes casual puzzle players, fans of quiet visual storytelling, and players interested in emotionally reflective games. At first, the game did not seem obviously feminist to me. It follows Ro, a mother, as she guides her child through impossible architecture. That could easily sound like a familiar maternal role rather than a feminist intervention.
To play Monument Valley 2 as a feminist, then, does not mean simply declaring that the game is feminist because it centers a mother and child. Instead, it means asking what kinds of actions the game values. The player does not progress by fighting enemies, collecting weapons, or conquering territory. The basic actions are rotating, sliding, aligning, waiting, guiding, and making paths possible. In this sense, the game shifts attention away from domination and toward relation. Its feminist potential lies in how it treats care and guidance as meaningful forms of play, not merely as emotional decoration around the “real” game.
One of the most important mechanics is perspective-shifting. Many spaces in Monument Valley 2 look impossible or disconnected from one angle, but when the player rotates or rearranges the structure, the broken pieces suddenly become connected. This mechanic feels closely related to a broader feminist value: the ability to see from more than one perspective. Feminism, especially in a wider sense, is not only about women as a category, but also about resisting fixed, single-angle assumptions about identity, relationships, and power. The game makes this idea physical. A path that appears wrong or impossible from one view may become livable from another.
This connects to Chess’s discussion of agency. In the game, agency does not mean total freedom. The player cannot go anywhere or change the story in any way they want. Instead, agency means acting within constraints: seeing the limits of the structure, changing the angle, and creating movement where there seemed to be none. This is why Monument Valley 2 can be connected to feminist theory. The game gives a female character, and the player guiding her, the ability to transform seemingly fixed structures. Ro’s journey becomes a metaphor for finding action inside systems that initially appear closed.
At the same time, my critique is that the game’s gender politics are not radical. If Ro were replaced by a father, a teacher, or a mentor, much of the story would still make sense. Men can also care, teach, guide, and let go. This means the game’s feminist meaning does not come from the idea that caregiving naturally belongs to women. In fact, that would be a limited and stereotypical reading. The more interesting point is that the game gives epic weight to a form of emotional labor that games often treat as secondary. It makes guiding a child feel like a great journey, not a minor domestic task.
Using MDA, the mechanics are the rotation and movement of impossible architecture; the dynamics are guiding, separating, reconnecting, and learning to move independently; and the aesthetics are warmth, loss, reflection, and wonder. The separation-and-reunion structure is powerful: Ro first leads the child, then the child walks alone, and eventually they reunite as changed figures. This is not a heroic journey of conquest, but a relational journey of growth. The child becomes an independent traveler capable of completing part of the mission alone .
Where the game fails, or at least remains limited, is that it does not fully question why this journey is attached to motherhood. Ro’s care is represented as graceful, quiet, and almost effortless. The game does not show the exhaustion, conflict, social pressure, or unequal distribution of caregiving that exists in real life. A stronger feminist version of the game could expand its own logic of multiple perspectives. For example, it could include an additional chapter or replay mode from a father’s, mentor’s, or another caregiver’s perspective. This would not erase Ro’s maternal journey, but it would show that care is not biologically or naturally limited to women.
This is also how feminist perspectives could improve the game. If the game already teaches players that impossible spaces can connect when viewed differently, it could apply that idea to gender roles as well. A male caregiver route, for instance, could ask players to perform the same acts of patience, guidance, and letting go, but with different cultural expectations attached. The contrast would make players notice how the same behavior is interpreted differently depending on gender. It would also support a broader feminist ethics: equality does not only mean allowing women to enter traditionally masculine spaces, but also allowing men to participate fully in care, tenderness, and emotional labor.
Ultimately, Monument Valley 2 fits the assignment category of positively affirming a familiar role with a fresh spin. It affirms the familiar image of the mother as caregiver, but its fresh spin is that caregiving becomes playable. The game is not radically feminist because it does not dismantle the gendered assumptions behind care. Still, it opens a valuable feminist reading by making perspective-shifting, relational agency, separation, and reunion central to play. For me, the game’s strongest feminist insight is not that only women can guide children, but that care itself can be a powerful, world-changing form of action.
AI Usage: ChatGPT was used for grammar checking and writing polishing.
