The creator of Wattam and Katamari Damacy has some serious thoughts on US politics

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Keita Takahashi on the need for forgiveness: "We should talk to each other more nicely, without fighting"

Wattam
(Image credit: Funomena)

Wattam director Keita Takahashi has told GamesRadar+ how Wattam's ending came about and how the stories ending is inspired by the need to "talk more nicely, without fighting".

Takahashi brought this up when discussing how he believes we "need to move forward in the future, especially after the next United States presidential election," after we asked him about a specific moment at the end of the game.

(Spoilers for Wattam follow. If you're thinking of playing Wattam don't scroll past this image of this lovely gang having a dance)

(Image credit: Funomena)

The end of the game sees players having to pick from one of four dialogue options as they confront The Moon about its actions. In an interview with Takahashi, we asked why he decided to go down this route, telling us: "I just didn't want to make a video game that finished with a fight, as a game designer. But just telling the story of The Moon was not enough. So I wanted something to make the player think about their life, or something that will make the player think about Wattam more deeply."

When he asked us what option we picked, he followed up by saying: "I know that all the answers are kind of the same – they're different, but the same. You mentioned earlier the story is about forgiveness, yeah. That is kind of the thing we need to move forward in the future, especially after the next United States presidential election."

"Right now it's such a disaster. Fighting each other left and right. Even Democrats in the next election are thinking, 'How do we fill this gap between Trump supporters and Democrats? How can we forgive them? Or how do we get forgiveness from Trump supporters?' We should talk to each other more nicely, without fighting. That's enough."

Showcasing his usual deadpan wit, Takahashi added: "But I couldn't put such a direct message in the game, because it would be kind of annoying, right?" 

With Wattam releasing tomorrow, December 17, we're not going to be waiting too long to get a chance to see this ending in action, as well as the rest of Wattam's peculiar puzzles. 

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Ben Tyrer
Ben Tyrer
Contributor

Ben Tyrer is a freelance games journalist with over ten years experience of writing about games. After graduating from Bournemouth University with a degree in multimedia journalism he's worked for Official PlayStation Magazine as a staff writer and games editor, as well as GamesRadar+ (hey, that's this website!) as a news editor. He's also contributed to Official Xbox Magazine, Edge, PC Gamer, GamesMaster, PC Games N, and more. His game of the year - no matter the year - is Rocket League.