Many developers try to make ‘cinematic’ games. Quantic Dream and Supermassive create interactive movies, featuring scenes punctuated by quick time events or story choices, while Kojima Productions inserts long, lavishly directed sequences, generally requiring no interaction from the player. Immortality, the latest game from Sam Barlow’s Half Mermaid, shows its love of cinema in a different way. Rather than emulate the experience of movies with long cinematics, it ties the language of cinema into its mechanics, story and themes in significant ways. Performance, framing, editing and all other elements of film are integral to making sense of the overall experience.
Much like Sam Barlow’s previous games Her Story and Telling Lies, you’re tasked with searching through a massive database of footage. In this case, the footage in question is from the three unreleased films of Marissa Marcel, a promising young actress who vanished without a trace. Instead of using a text based search engine like the other two games, a surprisingly intuitive match cut system is utilized. If you see something important in the scene you want to know more about, pause and click on it, and you’ll be taken to another clip with that object, or something similar. Surprisingly, the game feels best played with a controller, giving you immersive and important haptic feedback while simulating the tactile nature of scrubbing through a very physical medium.
This may not seem as easy to comprehend as simple search terms, but it leads the player by calling on their knowledge of the conventions of film, while still giving it room to bring you to unexpected places. For example, if a character is hiding an important looking key from someone else, click on that key to be taken to another scene featuring it. These connections can be made across all three films, so sometimes it can bring you to places that may have been hard to previously find. You’ll need to scrub back and forth through this footage to find the perfect shot, selling that sensation of being the editor of your own experience through this nonlinear journey.
Immortality doesn’t hold the player’s hand with this system, for better or worse. There’s no explicit checklist of things to discover, aside from the hidden achievements, leaving you to both discover what exactly it is you’re solving as well as the answers. When you have a lead that you’re tracking down, it can be exhilarating to tug at threads until you find a revelation, but there were times in the game that I found myself aimlessly bouncing around without a specific goal in mind, rapidly zoom and clicking over and over again to try to find an unseen clip. The game requires a lot of investment from the player, so it’s not for everyone, but the content of the footage remains entrancing even when your search feels aimless.
None of this would be worth it if the footage was mediocre, and I’m happy to say that each of the three films are good enough that I would watch them independently of this game. Each movie meticulously recreates the look of the period they are supposedly from, making it immediately apparent which film you’re looking at from just a quick glace. Different aspect ratios and film quality help ground you in what could very easily be a confusing and overwhelming whirlwind through multiple stories. Since this is raw footage instead of fully edited clips, most shots begin or end with a slate displaying the scene number to further categorize them quickly. It would be very easy for these films to run together, but they each strike out their own identity while still building on the overall themes of the game. A 1968 religious drama, a 1970 art scene detective mystery and a 1999 identity thriller don’t seem to have much in common, but they all fill in the tapestry that is Immortality, creating a haunting tale about the importance of art and the toll it can take on artists and those around them.
While the films themselves are interesting, the real mystery of the game comes from everything on the periphery. You know that Marcel has vanished, and little snippets before and after takes give you a glimpse into everything going on the sets of each film. Table reads, rehearsals, location scouting and other manners of behind the scenes footage are mixed in among the takes, providing a window into what the actors were like in the most candid of moments. Immortality loves the process of making movies, but also isn’t afraid to show the ugly side of the industry. It’s stunning the amount of characterization they’re able to sneak into the smallest expressions or phrases right before action is called. Immortality completely caught me off guard several times throughout, and to say much more would spoil the experience of discovery that made it so special.
Having multiple layers is not only a writing and game design challenge, but is a challenging task for the actors involved. Everyone involved kills it, from small side roles to Manon Gage as Marcel. Going through the footage in a nonlinear fashion only makes her journey from unrefined but clearly talented to fiercely confident and owning the screen all the more impressive. She’s the backbone of the movie, and she drives everything effortlessly. Looking her up on IMDb, I’m flabbergasted by the fact that her only other role is an uncredited appearance in Mank, coincidentally another story about the creative process. Having the real life actress come out of nowhere with such a strong set of performances makes her feel even closer to Marcel, adding another layer to the mystique.
The night before I completed Immortality I had a dream about finishing it. I don’t remember the details, but I sat down and hit credits while eating breakfast, making it feel like the path to the final puzzle piece came to me in my dream. The experience I had in the nine hours I spent with the game felt very dreamlike: connecting symbols into meaning, synthesizing seemingly disparate elements, all with a hazy narrative that works with a lot of abstract concepts. Even after hitting credits, I feel like there’s more tantalizing mysteries lingering in the game. I’ll definitely go back to unearth the new clips to discover every small piece of information I can about Immortality’s sprawling narrative.
The game demands a lot from you, sometimes leaning on you to keep yourself motivated while trying to stumble onto a new clue, but it’s a completely unique experience that reminded me why I love both films and video games. The sheer amount of work that went into creating a game, three movies, and a behind the scenes narrative all in one thematically impactful package is absolutely staggering, and it paid off in spades.
