Originally posted here: https://cultclassiccornervideogames.wordpress.com/2018/02/15/dear-esther-landmark-edition-pc-os-x-linux-ps4-xbone-review/
The phrase “Walking Simulator” gets thrown around a lot when talking about games such as Dear Esther in a derogatory manor since these games have very little in the way of “gameplay”. I do think that stuff consisting of exploring an environment while the plot happens in an unconventional manner does have a place, regardless of popularity, which was originally an unpopular opinion, but has gained a lot of appreciate over the decade or more since the release of Dear Esther.
Dear Esther was originally a first person exploration mod for Half-Life 2 in 2008 by a small group of modders called The Chinese Room. 4 years later, in 2012, the game got remade into it’s own entity on a newer version of the Source engine with significant graphical upgrades. For it’s final version, released in 2017, Dear Esther was ported to the Unity engine with a few extra bills and whistles, and is called Dear Esther: Landmark Edition.
The game is told through narration as the player explores an uninhabited island with the narrator reading from a series of letter fragments to a woman named Esther, who is implied to be the wife of the person writing the letter.
Even though Dear Esther is incredibly linear, certain aspects of it are randomized, allowing for multiple playthroughs. The most obvious randomized part of the game is the narration, with the narrarator giving new information about what happened to the characters involved with the story from their perspective.
Other randomized parts of the game include an underwater highway and several ghosts that appear throughout the game as you make your journey across the island. Some apear off in the distance, others briefly appear in front of you, and one only appears on the beach in the reflection of the water. I’ve played the game twice just to get the general idea of how these segments work.
Although if you’ve played the game once, you’ve pretty much got the gist of the game and have already seen 90% of it. Although I’m pretty sure that most of the audience buying this game know immediately wether or not they like it from the trailer, images, and plot synopsis, so it’s not like most people are goign to wander into this game knowing nothing about it.
The Landmark Edition even comes with developer commentary, explaining the process from when it was first conceived and made a mod to becoming a game. Even if you’re not at all into the type of experience that Dear Esther is, the developer commentary might be a highlight for aspiring developers who want to get into game development or at least want to try something different from what they’ve previously made.
Despite the whole game being drab and grey as well as being set on a depressing and baron island, it is quite beautiful to look at and listen to. The soundtrack is haunting, adding onto the feeling of lonliness that was already there from having to wander such a lonely place. Ironically, what it intends to do it does with flying colors. It’s just that it does little outside of what it presents and could have easily been a bunch of randomized video and audio playing for 30 minutes, and that’s going to be the determining factor for a lot of people.
Dear Esther isn’t pretending to be anything else other than what it clearly is, which is a short experimental narrative game trying to invoke a very specific emotion and atmosphere. It could have easily been a more engaging experience, with more for the player to do. Not necessarily with puzzles, but definately with something else, but that would have gone against what the game is. And I can’t get annoyed at what the game isn’t trying to be.
The game is a love it or hate it experience. If you have no interest in it, I doubt anything will convince you to try it out. And if you’re not interested in it, you’ve probably already played it for yourself and like discussing it’s ideas, or have at least put it in your wishlist for when a sale inevitably comes along. But after playing it, I didn’t find any real depth beyond filling it a few cracks with a story that was already pretty obvious with where it was going.
The phrase “Walking Simulator” gets thrown around a lot when talking about games such as Dear Esther in a derogatory manor since these games have very little in the way of “gameplay”. I do think that stuff consisting of exploring an environment while the plot happens in an unconventional manner does have a place, regardless of popularity, which was originally an unpopular opinion, but has gained a lot of appreciate over the decade or more since the release of Dear Esther.
Dear Esther was originally a first person exploration mod for Half-Life 2 in 2008 by a small group of modders called The Chinese Room. 4 years later, in 2012, the game got remade into it’s own entity on a newer version of the Source engine with significant graphical upgrades. For it’s final version, released in 2017, Dear Esther was ported to the Unity engine with a few extra bills and whistles, and is called Dear Esther: Landmark Edition.
The game is told through narration as the player explores an uninhabited island with the narrator reading from a series of letter fragments to a woman named Esther, who is implied to be the wife of the person writing the letter.
Even though Dear Esther is incredibly linear, certain aspects of it are randomized, allowing for multiple playthroughs. The most obvious randomized part of the game is the narration, with the narrarator giving new information about what happened to the characters involved with the story from their perspective.
Other randomized parts of the game include an underwater highway and several ghosts that appear throughout the game as you make your journey across the island. Some apear off in the distance, others briefly appear in front of you, and one only appears on the beach in the reflection of the water. I’ve played the game twice just to get the general idea of how these segments work.
Although if you’ve played the game once, you’ve pretty much got the gist of the game and have already seen 90% of it. Although I’m pretty sure that most of the audience buying this game know immediately wether or not they like it from the trailer, images, and plot synopsis, so it’s not like most people are goign to wander into this game knowing nothing about it.
The Landmark Edition even comes with developer commentary, explaining the process from when it was first conceived and made a mod to becoming a game. Even if you’re not at all into the type of experience that Dear Esther is, the developer commentary might be a highlight for aspiring developers who want to get into game development or at least want to try something different from what they’ve previously made.
Despite the whole game being drab and grey as well as being set on a depressing and baron island, it is quite beautiful to look at and listen to. The soundtrack is haunting, adding onto the feeling of lonliness that was already there from having to wander such a lonely place. Ironically, what it intends to do it does with flying colors. It’s just that it does little outside of what it presents and could have easily been a bunch of randomized video and audio playing for 30 minutes, and that’s going to be the determining factor for a lot of people.
Dear Esther isn’t pretending to be anything else other than what it clearly is, which is a short experimental narrative game trying to invoke a very specific emotion and atmosphere. It could have easily been a more engaging experience, with more for the player to do. Not necessarily with puzzles, but definately with something else, but that would have gone against what the game is. And I can’t get annoyed at what the game isn’t trying to be.
The game is a love it or hate it experience. If you have no interest in it, I doubt anything will convince you to try it out. And if you’re not interested in it, you’ve probably already played it for yourself and like discussing it’s ideas, or have at least put it in your wishlist for when a sale inevitably comes along. But after playing it, I didn’t find any real depth beyond filling it a few cracks with a story that was already pretty obvious with where it was going.