Rick And Morty: The Roy Video Game Unexpectedly Blew Fans' Minds

Adult animation "Rick and Morty" has never been afraid to go there with its array of strange concepts. Amongst its most bizarre ideas came in the show's second season when Rick straps a very special helmet to Morty's head. 

In the episode "Mortynight Run," Rick sells a gun to an intergalactic assassin, allowing him and Morty to go to the Blips and Chitz video arcade. It is here that Rick gets Morty to play the game "Roy: A Life Well-Lived." The game acts as a virtual reality simulator that allows the user to live through the eyes of a man named Roy Parsons. The user must guide Roy from childhood to death, with the final score being based on the number of years you were able to keep Roy alive. Morty's crack at the game would see Roy's life end in a carpet store at 55 years old.

"Roy: A Life Well Lived" not only made for a darkly comedic side quest for the titular duo, but the game's strange nature got plenty of fans to start thinking of its head-turning implications. On the scene's YouTube upload, user PayneKiller describes just how existential it all gets, commenting, "When you really think about it, this is actually a terrifying concept. You live an entire life and then you remember your old life and then just go back to normal." And it's that terrifying concept that has plenty of other fans in a similar frenzy.

Like so many other aspects of "Rick and Morty," the eccentric game "Roy: A Life Well-Lived"  has plenty of fans trying to unpack its greater meaning. 

Some viewers went especially out there with their theories, such as u/SofaSurfer9 on Reddit, who questions, "What if this is literally what happens when we die? We are just some kind of alien kids in an amusement park that put a helmet on them and play dumb humans." It certainly doesn't seem like too far of a stretch to make for a show as quirky as "Rick and Morty," but other fans have focused on the richer ideas being communicated through Morty's play-through of the game. 

On YouTube, Planguy feels there's much to be taken away from Roy's life, commenting, "Hey, Roy went back to the carpet store after beating cancer because he discovered his true satisfaction was with the connections he had with his loved ones rather than what his career happened to be." As seemingly sad as it is to see Roy's hardships, there's no denying that there is beauty to the character's willingness to accept what the world has offered him. 

Roy's simple story may not be everyone's picture-perfect lifestyle, but as a small part of the crazy world of "Rick and Morty," it represents something more meaningful. YouTuber AlexAlienNerd perhaps puts it best, saying that Roy's melancholy life, "sums up the entire philosophy of this show better than anything else."