Asmongold is often hectic and loud. But an indie game has surprisingly shown him calm and composed – and it happens to be one of the most controversial titles of the year.
Most people know the streamer Asmongold, if only from the WoW cosmos. He often has strong opinions, is frequently a bit exaggerated in his streams, and occasionally tends to insults and swearing – whether it’s towards games or developers who, in his view, make poor decisions.
However, Asmongold has proven that he can be quite different in a rather long stream. For almost 5 hours, he played a purely story-based game and even read all the dialogues aloud.
What happened in the stream? The streamer Asmongold wanted to surprise his community with a game that he would take a closer look at:
This is a video game about which a lot has been said – whether it came from psychos on Twitter, psychos on YouTube, or psychos on Twitch. There are just a lot of psychos who have a lot of interest in the game. People had very strong opinions about it. I will now play it and try it out for myself. If people say that this is problematic, I want to see it for myself.
This kicked off a nearly 4-hour stream where Asmongold played “The Coffin of Andy and Leyley” – reading all the dialogues and monologues aloud without ridiculing them constantly.
Why is this so special? Most people know Asmongold as a rather hectic streamer who often perceives game content only superficially and then reacts impulsively. Games are often completely criticized based only on a trailer, or single sentences from statements are used to immediately represent a strong opinion.
For many, Asmongold and other players of this kind are therefore the personified version of the clichéd “Generation TikTok” – loud, thoughtless, and with a short attention span. However, it is quite unexpected that Asmongold can also be very different and treats a story game with so much respect and calm.
What kind of game is this? “The Coffin of Andy and Leyley” is a story-based game that follows the story of two siblings, Andrew and Ashley. For weeks, the two have been locked in their apartment on the government’s orders, while food is running low. Due to the circumstances, they are ultimately forced to even resort to cannibalism to survive.
However, especially Ashley seems to carry some psychological problems with her. She is extremely possessive of her brother and deliberately manipulates him into a co-dependency that, depending on the choices made in the game, even develops into a budding incestuous relationship and does not shy away from murders or other atrocities.
The overwhelming majority of the game consists of dialogues, interspersed with smaller puzzle segments and a few decisions. We have written a detailed report on the game here.
How does Asmongold evaluate the game? Although Asmongold probably only started playing the game because there were so many controversial discussions surrounding it, it seems he ended up really enjoying it.
His conclusion after playing all the content available so far and even – more by chance than intention – choosing the “questionable” route:
What are my thoughts [on the game]? Sick, twisted, captivating, and interesting. I genuinely think it was really good. I don’t understand why people were so upset about it. (…) It was better than I expected. It is quite good. I liked it very much. (…) It was definitely one of the better indie games this year.
Cortyn says: I mainly deal with Asmongold professionally, mostly in the context of World of Warcraft. Watching him for a full four hours is something that you wouldn’t typically find in my leisure planning – at least so far.
Seeing Asmongold approach one of my favorite games of the year with relative impartiality and the necessary seriousness for a story game was refreshing to see – and incredibly entertaining. Even his community (which you can always see displayed in the chat) becomes quieter and more open to the game as the duration of the gameplay increases.
For me, this was an interesting and welcome side of Asmongold – which I simply found entertaining.
However, “The Coffin of Andy and Leyley” is also accompanied by a very disillusioning story. The developer of the game completely withdrew from the public eye after a doxxing incident and now only works offline – she has cut off all contact with fans and critics.
