What’s Cookin?: Necrobarista’s Bare Bones Barista-ing is Haunting in the Worst Way

Warning: this piece contains spoilers for Necrobarista

Route 59’s Necrobarista is, as the name implies, about both necromancy and coffee. Unfortunately, it’s more about the former than the latter. That’s not to say that necromancy isn’t cool, because like, duh yes it is, obviously–but a game about barista-ing where you don’t actually make any coffee is pretty disappointing given the game’s overall messaging. 

The Terminal is a cafe situated between the world of the living and the land of the dead. For the living, the cafe is just your ordinary coffee joint, for the dead it’s sort of a cozy rest stop before whatever comes next. Once the dead enter, they have 24 hours to move onto the next plane of existence, which is plenty of time to have one last coffee. The game’s main characters, Maddy, and her former boss/mentor Chay, are its proprietors, and work to dish out drinks to the dead before they take that final plunge.. 

But that’s not part of the gameplay at all, and it sucks. Making food/drinks for someone as a form of comfort, or even just as a distraction, is a very real thing in people’s day to day lives, and Necrobarista is aware of that. There are a few different instances where one of the dearly departed will mention that they’re freaking out about having to cross over, or just about coming to terms with being dead in general, and Maddy and/or Chay are always quick to offer something to help steady the nerves. But you don’t get to make it. 

Maddy and Chay’s care is made passive by the game. You occasionally see them pulling shots or steaming milk, but they’re brief glimpses and are never controlled by the player. This is weird for a few reasons. The most obvious is that it’s a game about making coffee and running a cafe. Or at least, I think that’s what a lot of folks, myself included, expected. You know, something like Coffee Talk but more rooted in death. 

Necrobarista is not that. It’s very much a visual novel, with some honestly funky and, in my opinion, unnecessary first person sections where you navigate the cafe and can unlock different aspects of the lore. While I did enjoy this tighter focus on the game’s admittedly stellar main cast, it remained a bummer that I wasn’t really running this cafe or even getting to watch Maddy or Chay go through the process of making a drink for someone. 

This is a game about giving people a bit of a breather before they have to face what will probably be the scariest journey of their existence. Part of what makes cooking special, sacred even, is that it allows us to physically manifest the love, care, and attention we feel towards someone. Necrobarista takes that away though, leaning into its visual novel sections which would be fine if it weren’t for their insistence on using clunky first person sections (that caused my game to crash on iOS multiple times, I might add.) Aside from Kishan and Ned, you don’t even see any of the customers’ faces- they’re just silhouettes that are slightly out of frame. 

I realize this is because Necrobarista’s aim is ultimately to tell a story about a tumultuous mentor-student relationship that has finally run its course, but it’s a bummer that Chay’s life and death ultimately eclipse pretty much everyone else’s. His role in both the Terminal and Maddy’s life are key, but I can’t help but feel sad for all the ghosts wandering through this cafe that I never got to serve, let alone even see. I love the idea of being able to make someone one last drink before they go, as a little spot of comfort before heading into the unknown, and I’m sad that Route 59 didn’t incorporate that here.