In 2025, I skilled two mayoral elections.
One was in my very own yard. For an excellent portion of the yr, New York Metropolis’s native politics grew to become a matter of nationwide curiosity. It was a sizzling election cycle due to then-mayor Eric Adams, an eccentric political determine who had spent years in workplace embroiled in scandal. Adams was susceptible and that opened up an influence vacuum in a divided Democratic get together. It appeared all however inevitable that former New York governor Andrew Cuomo would fill that hole, outrunning sexual misconduct allegations that pushed him out of workplace in 2021. That was till a younger democratic socialist named Zohran Mamdani would efficiently rally pissed off New Yorkers in a grassroots marketing campaign story for the ages.
Earlier than that, I noticed a special mayoral race play out in Kaso-Machi. The implications of this one weren’t so international. A small Japanese village, Kaso-Machi was an instance of a once-thriving neighborhood decreased to a ghost city by way of years of neglect from crooked politicians who didn’t have folks’s greatest pursuits in thoughts. For years, it appeared like there was no hope of eradicating Mayor Maeda from energy — at the very least not till an unlikely candidate received offended sufficient to take up the trigger and put a voice to the city’s frustrations.
You wouldn’t have heard about Kaso-Machi’s election within the information, as a result of Kaso-Machi doesn’t exist. It’s the fictional setting of 2025’s Promise Mascot Company. Developed by Kaizen Recreation Works, the studio behind the 2020 cult hit Paradise Killer, Promise Mascot Company is an eclectic style mash-up that defies any straightforward description. It’s an open-world journey. It’s a truck driving recreation. It’s a deckbuilder. It’s a small enterprise simulator. However above all else, it’s an instance of life imitating artwork. Its story a couple of group of costumed misfits attempting to save lots of the soul of their dwelling unexpectedly remodeled Promise Mascot Company into one in every of final yr’s most related video games, now that the mud has settled. Amid its infinite allure and silliness, there’s quite a bit to be taught from a recreation that so earnestly believes within the energy of the folks.
Promise Mascot Company doesn’t start with a political battle; as an alternative, it opens with a felony one. Michi is a cleaner for a Yakuza household, a gig that’s earned him the nickname The Janitor. After a monetary scheme goes south, Michi takes the autumn for his boss and is distributed into exile. That lands him in Kaso-Machi, a city that casts a lethal curse on Yakuza males. He’s doomed to waste away in a city that itself is within the means of dying.
At first, Michi isn’t terribly involved with the city’s issues. It’s only a quiet hiding place the place he can assist work off his boss’ debt by taking cost of the native Promise Mascot Company. The failing small enterprise dispatches its roster of mascots out to completely different occasions all through city, whether or not it is the opening of a brand new enterprise or a celebration. The operation is in shambles by the point Michi will get into city. Work has dried up and many of the mascots have disbanded. The exception is Pinky, a sentient finger with a severe anger downside. Collectively, Pinky and Michi attempt to rebuild the enterprise in a handy mutual partnership.
Picture: Kaizen Recreation Works
It’s by way of that relationship that Michi really will get clued into what’s taking place on the town. Mayor Maeda is your typical politician, one who talks a giant recreation about investing in Kaso-Machi simply to get votes, however by no means follows by way of on his guarantees. His reign as mayor has despatched the village into disrepair, leaving the city’s misfit residents to tumble additional into financial turmoil because the wealthy get richer. It’s sufficient to radicalize Michi, a person who sees little daylight between the native authorities and the felony underworld he is aware of. What’s a crooked mayor if not a Yakuza boss, proper?
Regardless that I performed Promise Mascot Company earlier than the election in my very own metropolis was in full swing, I couldn’t assist however see some parallels. In 2021, Eric Adams was elected the 111th mayor of New York Metropolis, the place I’ve lived for practically 15 years now. All of it occurred just a few years in the past, and but all of it looks like a blur. Adams gained the primaries (narrowly beating Kathyrn Garcia by way of ranked alternative voting math) by touting his historical past with the New York Police Division. None of his challengers might put forth a gross sales pitch to match and that allowed Adams to develop into town’s Democratic candidate, which is successfully a de facto win in a New York Metropolis basic mayoral election. Then issues received bizarre.
It’s arduous to elucidate how constantly weird the Adams years have been to anybody who doesn’t dwell in New York Metropolis. He had the vitality of an area eccentric you’d see in your bodega each morning. He was a relentless supply of unusual soundbites. Who can neglect classics like: “It is a place the place daily you get up you could possibly expertise all the things from a aircraft crashing into our commerce middle by way of an individual who’s celebrating a brand new enterprise that’s about to open.” The one time I ever noticed him in particular person was once I attended an Xbox occasion aimed toward native recreation builders, wherein Adams appeared as a shock visitor, starting his speech to the gang with, “I don’t know something about video video games.”
Picture: Eric Adams
It might all have been quite a bit funnier if Adams didn’t maintain an amazing quantity of energy. Underneath his reign as mayor, the price of fundamental wants rose throughout town. Adams did little to handle that disaster, as an alternative putting a lot of his give attention to hiring extra NYPD officers and policing crimes like fare evasion within the metropolis’s subway system. That will have made Adams a controversial mayor by itself, however his status was additional tarnished by scandals that adopted him by way of his reign. Bribery prices hung over his closing years as mayor, finally weakening his reelection possibilities in 2025. Many New Yorkers have been fed up; they simply didn’t know the best way to take care of that rage.
Pinky finds herself in an identical place in Promise Mascot Company. Because the story progresses, Michi finally asks Pinky why she doesn’t simply run in opposition to the mayor within the upcoming election. Who, Pinky? A well-meaning loudmouth with no political expertise? It seems like a waste of time, contemplating Mayor Maeda’s stranglehold in town. One little misfit can’t make a distinction anyway.
The story solely kicks into full gear as soon as Pinky will get the arrogance to run, with Michi appearing as her marketing campaign supervisor. Along with dispatching mascots and gathering money to repay the Yakuza’s debt, one other activity is thrown into gamers’ lap as they drive round Kaso-Machi: pop-up debates. Pinky and Michi sometimes discover the mayor giving speeches round city and might flip that right into a campaigning second, calling out his hypocrisy whereas placing forth a more healthy imaginative and prescient for the city. What begins as a screwball comedy about incompetent mascots quickly transforms right into a political drama about an unlikely grassroots effort that offers a voice again to the unvoiced.
Like Kaso-Machi, New York Metropolis is a city stuffed with misfits.
Just a few months after I performed by way of Promise Mascot Company, New York Metropolis’s main marketing campaign received into full swing. Because it approached, shades of 2021 started to pop up. Regardless of feeling like a weak candidate, Andrew Cuomo appeared poised to win the Democratic nomination with little resistance. There have been restricted options and no candidate was breaking by way of with a message robust sufficient to high Cuomo’s identify recognition. New York Metropolis was going to be run by one other institution politician along with his personal baggage, at a time the place town was in want of change. Nobody might cease that inevitability — or so New Yorkers thought.
The primary time I noticed a marketing campaign advert for Zohran Mamdani, I had no thought what I used to be . I believed he was a Day by day Present correspondent based mostly on the humorousness and manufacturing high quality of his movies. He spoke charismatically and mentioned all the fitting issues about New York’s affordability downside, however he felt like an unrealistic longshot. Then his marketing campaign posters began showing within the home windows of native companies on my block. The streets crammed up with canvassers. Quickly, my mom who lived in Massachusetts was asking me who he was. There was an actual sense of momentum, fueled by an on-the-ground marketing campaign technique that focused a type of New Yorker who didn’t really feel that town’s management was in contact with their issues.
Like Kaso-Machi, New York Metropolis is a city stuffed with misfits. The long-lasting photos of males in costly fits strolling round Wall Avenue solely supply a slender glimpse into town’s numerous make-up. It’s one thing you solely actually see once you spend time dwelling deep within the boroughs alongside working folks attempting to make ends meet in a metropolis the place the hire costs preserve pushing them additional in direction of the outskirts. Survival solely appears to get more durable and more durable as wages fail to maintain tempo with the rising price of dwelling. Once I discuss to associates from out of city concerning the rising financial boundaries, they normally ask the identical query: Why not simply transfer? I supply a counter: Why ought to the individuals who care concerning the metropolis transfer?
Picture: Kaizen Recreation Works
In all its fantastical whimsy, Promise Mascot Company jogs my memory of dwelling in ways in which few video games really set in New York Metropolis do. (See: this yr’s Battlefield 6 and its ludicrous Brooklyn missions.) It’s a narrative a couple of neighborhood in disaster, on the mercy of a corrupt political machine that cares not for the wants of the folks. Kaso-Machi looks like a misplaced trigger. And but, it’s nonetheless stuffed with weirdos keen to battle for the place they name dwelling. One loudmouthed pinky evokes another person to talk up. The voices come collectively till a whisper turns right into a roar. Collectively, the powerless acquire the facility to topple mountains, or at the very least halt a political inevitability.
As of the time of publication, Zohran Mamdani is formally New York Metropolis’s mayor. It is going to be a very long time till we all know if he can dwell as much as the large guarantees that propelled him to victory or if he’ll develop into one other in a protracted line of hated New York Metropolis mayors. Historical past tells us to remain on our toes. However what’s completely different about this inauguration from the final one is that now we all know who holds the facility on this city. The misfits run the company, and also you’re going to must reply to tens of millions of Pinkys when you screw up.
