#7 - Everybody's Gone to the Rapture
Platform I played on: PlayStation 4
Available platforms: PlayStation 4, Steam
Developers: The Chinese Room, SCE Santa Monica Studio
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
Length: 7 hours
Platform I played on: PlayStation 4
Available platforms: PlayStation 4, Steam
Developers: The Chinese Room, SCE Santa Monica Studio
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
Length: 7 hours
Story:
In Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, you'll find yourself exploring some small English town devoid of any people. Instead, you'll see little light orbs floating around which will guide you and sometimes play out scenes for you about the missing inhabitants. What happened to them? What's going on? These are the narratoive driving questions as you explore and uncover the story.
Gameplay:
Everybody's Gone to the Rapture is an extremely simple game to play. You walk around. By doing so, you'll slowly unravel the narrative of the game. There are optional scenes you can see by exploring thoroughly and you can look at the areas for clues to try and unravel the mystery before the reveal, but that is pretty much the gameplay. It is separated in to distinct "chapters" or sections which lead you off in to the next area and orbs of light will usually guide you towards the next major scene.
Environment:
This game is gorgeous. It's very detailed and allows a decent amount of exploration. The game is divided in sections with each new section offering a bit of a change in scenery, from the woods to a farm to camp grounds and a few others. You're free to explore a lot of these areas, and while it does have limitations as to how far you can venture and what you can see, there's enough there that it rarely feels limiting. You're also free to go back to any previous areas when/if you want to.
Ambiance:
This game has very good ambiance. It does a lot of its storytelling through environment, so even if you catch all of the scenes, you'll gain more from the story by observing and exploring. The orbs of light really stand out, as they're intended to, which helps show the impact they have on the game. The music is pretty good and suits the mood overall well. And it really does give you the sense of mystery and wonder with a slight bit of fear, which is what Everybody's Gone to the Rapture is trying to convey.
Choices:
Really the only choices are how much you explore and at what pace. Also how you interpret the events that are happening.
Puzzles:
Not much here either. You are basically trying to figure out what happened, but there's nothing you really need to do in-game other than find the appropriate scenes.
Cons:
-Not much variance in playthroughs or aspects to make your experience "unique"
-The walking can be too slow, especially for when you want to backtrack
-The light orbs that guide you can kind of bug out at times, which made it drustrating to find my destination in one section
Pros:
-Good cast of characters
-Some of the story is left open to interpretation
-Beautiful
-Relaxing
-A lot of environment to explore
Overall:
I really enjoyed this game. It had just the right amount of ambiguity to the story so that it felt resolved but allowed for theorizing and discussion. The characters were well written and really came across as "real" people. No one was without faults and the less-than-good people were not without redeeming qualities. It was gorgeous and relaxing but it also kept me wanting to uncover the narrative and learn more about these people. If you like the "walking sim" style of adventure game, this might be worth checking out!
Verdict:
Don't let your controlling mother interfere in your love life