There is disquieting loneliness, yes, a sense we’re standing on the precipice of an ever-expanding void that will swallow us sooner rather than later. Dear Esther forgoes both grit and blockbuster action in favor of pushing bleak horror through the filter of Terrence Malick’s love for the transcendent. These environments are often bombed-out suburbs or decommissioned space stations with corpses strewn about, big flashing indicators that The World Is In Danger And It’s Up To You To Save It, Heroine. Developers and publishers everywhere, every year create such universes for the explicit purpose of selling you the license to bring even more suffering into that world, usually by unloading bullets into fleshy things at 30 frames per second. That Dear Esther creates a world defined by suffering is not a grand achievement in itself. Yet there’s an odd comfort in coming face to face with that realization, especially in a simulated environment created by a team of people who, being people, probably have at least some variation of some of the same hang-ups we do. We are often alone with the crap that drags us down day in, day out in a world largely unconcerned with our baggage. Overwhelming desolation and isolation are what Dear Esther evokes so well. They’re shame, regret, that creeping feeling that a poor decision you made years ago is finally about to catch up to you. The real ghosts on the island are not the peek-a-boo figures in the distance, they are the things we’ve done and the things that have been done to us. People we’ve hurt or lost, moments when we should have gone left instead of right. We’re all haunted in one way or another by ghosts like these. All that matters is these are stories of pain, of longing and loss, the kind of stories that are easy to relate to or at the very least comprehend on an emotional level. He tells you about an 18th century shepherd killed by disease, a fatal car crash and tales concerning his own research on the island, but we’re only ever given bits of these stories and how they might tie into each other, which is ultimately irrelevant in my eyes. There are actual spirits you see from time to time if you’re looking in the right spots, but the presence of these specters is nothing in comparison to the ghosts of pain present in the narrator’s voiceovers, all of which play in sequence as you make your way from one end of the island to the other. To that end: this is a game largely concerned with ghosts. What the game evokes is far more interesting than the specifics of a plot that’s nebulous at best. Dear Esther is best left as an unsettling howl of grief into the sea wind. I can understand the merit and joy that lies within attempting to piece together a story like this, but it’s not a task that’s of interest to me. Who is the narrator? Why does the number 21 show up so much? Why is the game named after a character you only hear referenced a handful of times? Who does the player control? So on, so forth. Much has been written about Dear Esther’s narrative, with authors putting together wikis, videos and articles explaining what they believe the story is about or offering a series of possible answers for common questions about the game. Every inch of Dear Esther’s island is gorgeous, from the abandoned lighthouse that greets you to the soggy paper boats you find on the far shore and the caves that make up the belly of the isle, but I’m talking about more than the kind of beauty that’s pleasing to the eye. The games created by The Chinese Room are worlds of mourning where grief is etched into the walls, where we are allowed to explore the ruinscapes of our shattered selves. There are no great battles to be fought, no one to save. In Dear Esther the cause is already lost. There are high stakes in those games, with the protagonist’s life or fate of the world hanging in the balance. Nothing resembles the slowly building dread of psychological horror seen in Silent Hill. Despite all my efforts I can never get far away enough to think I can exist without this place.ĭear Esther is a particular kind of horror game, one that actively encourages projection and self-insertion. I have been here before and I will return here again before long. In the distance I see a radio tower, its light blinking red through the fog of dusk. I start on the shore, momentarily disturbing the still life of grass and rocks with my slow footsteps. With The Chinese Room’s latest game, Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture, out today, we look back at the studio’s first two games.ĭear Esther is the closest thing I have to a pilgrimage.
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