A game of immeasurable power and relevancy. Undoubtedly something that deserves a sincere reevaluation given our contemporary woes and social unrest. With the luscious visual designs borrowing from Romanticist values and a breathtaking score by Jessica Curry, in ways this feels ahead of its time, achieving an overwhelming sense of isolation through the usual tropes of the "walking sim" genre. It's the massive scope that makes all the difference. What's told here is a richly drawn tapestry of a town populated by complicated people reckoning with complex events; the chief being the apocalypse itself. Or at least the end of "their" world as they know it. This game engages with annihilation as it is happening, and the intimate traumas and regrets and buried revelations that are unearthed when civilized society is pushed to the brink of oblivion. It is an expressively funereal and thunderous experience. My only qualms fall on what was probably time/budget restrictions; the interior designs becoming a bit monotonous and the way some of the areas bleed together can be disarming. Needless to say the game is consistently enthralling, finding various methods of connecting dread and beauty together through its aesthetic and voice talents, entwining them in poetic fashion.

An ethereal dance of light and darkness, cosmic by definition. It's rare to see a game take such a brave yet absolute trek into the unknown. Encompassing feels like the correct word.