Man, I really wish I could give it a positive review, because this is clearly a labor of love. The score is very effective, oftentimes reminding me of big budget Hollywood espionage thrillers. The art style is minimalist, akin to ‘Firewatch’, but I liked it, even though some larger areas could’ve used some more ‘clutter’ to make them feel more lived in and not like empty sets. The character animations are very simple, but I felt they were usually effective in conveying the emotions of NPCs.

‘Virginia’ goes for the cinematic experience with very little interactivity available to the player. You’ll be mostly jumping from one short scene to another, observing events unfold in front of you. Sometimes you’ll be able to roam around a room or an apartment in search of an object to click on to move the plot further. Unlike in most walking simulators, you don’t have the opportunity to explore and interact with a variety of objects or documents that would help you fill in the gaps in the story - here you’re basically just shown 90 minutes or so of vague cutscenes (there is no dialogue in the game).

Understanding the story is one thing (mostly doable on your first playthrough, although some story beats could’ve been presented in a better way), but caring about the characters is a completely different issue. Towards the end of the experience the devs clearly wanted to elicit some emotional response from me, but they failed miserably as I was given almost nothing to make me form any attachment to any of the characters. This is where the game suffers most from its extremely minimalist approach.