‘Newfound Courage’: The Refreshing, Queer-Friendly Game We Needed

Note: while I’ve attempted to avoid any spoilers, if you want to go in fresh, I highly recommend you play the game first, and then come back to the review.

“Wow.”

That was the thought I had as I completed Newfound Courage. I purchased the game on a whim-it was on a list of games with gay protagonists, the pixel art was pretty, and the tagline was rather direct: “Alex, a gay hero, falls in love with his best friend while the world unravels around them.” The description said it was short (about 3 hours), so I figured, “Why not?”

I’ve very glad I did, because while it’s not long, Newfound Courage is absolutely worth your time.

It’s rather tricky to review the game, because the things that I loved most about the game are all significant spoilers. You play as Alex, who has just fled his old town, and is taken in by a woman of another town who just lost her own son. You meet the people of Silverpine, make friends, and slowly start to realize something might not be as it seems. The “vault,” the building that looks like a library, seems to have something odd going on around it.