For the better part of a decade, The Chinese Room has been doing for atmospheric walk ‘n talks what Telltale has done for episodic gaming — and like Telltale, the stories they tell expand on a preexisting universe, rather than create one. It’s an odd approach to game development, but it’s one that gave us narratively ambitious titles like Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs and Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture, which weren’t at all afraid to get weird.
It was the experimental Half-Life 2 mod Dear Esther that first showcased their ability to make going for a walk while someone talks at you a worthy premise for a video game. There’s a mystery it asks you to solve, but there’s no urgency to it. Without enemies or objectives, the narrative becomes the carrot-on-a-stick that carries its relatively brief 2-3 hour running-time.
Dear Esther won’t click with everyone, but I it’s worth checking out to see if it does for you. It’s available now on PC, Mac and Linux, with a planned release for PS4 and Xbox One this summer.
