One of the genres that has picked up steam over the last couple of years is narrative driven adventure games. They aren’t fast paced but they are interesting because of the stories they tell and the compelling environments. I have been looking forward to “Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture” since it’s announcement at E3 a few years ago and it’s finally out.
“Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture” (EGttR) is a peculiar game. There isn’t any action but there are a lot of things to do and see. “EGttR” tells the story of a quite little English town after a world-ending incident has left you alone to unravel what happened. “EgttR” is an open world game where you wander around solving puzzles and uncovering story elements in some cool ways. “EgttR” pushes the boundaries of story telling in games and is one of the most intriguing games of the season.
The story begins after the end of the world. The visuals in the game are absolutely gorgeous, the music is somber and appropriate and the voice acting is top notch. This goes a long way in making the world feel believable and it gives you a reason to explore. If you don’t want to just explore you can follow a ball of light that will lead you around to different places where you can watch recorded memories of events that happened in a particular spot. This is how you can experience the story and begin to solve the mystery. When you come across a memory, you see people made out of light almost like ghosts, and you can hear their conversations. Here is a tip: Turn the subtitles on because it makes it much easier to figure out who is speaking, if you don’t it’s easy to lose track of which story is which. I really loved finding all the memory scenes and watching each one of them play out. The ball of light is basically a guide but you can decide to ignore it and go on your own but you run the risk of missing memory scenes. “EgttR” is not incredibly long. If you follow the ball, it streamlines the story and you can finish it within a few hours or you can explore on your own which will drag it out for a bit.
I don’t have too many gripes with the game except the movement speed can be a little slow, sometimes you have to back track a lot and it can get tedious. I did learn online if you hold the walk button down for 7 seconds it activates a run which is a bit faster and pretty helpful. They should have at least said something about this in the game, because most people would miss that if they didn’t hear about it somewhere else.
Overall I loved “Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture” the whole game lives and dies by the story and I love that they are trying new things in story telling.
If you are looking for an action packed game this is definitely not it.
I enjoyed the cast of characters and the drive to find all the content kept me engaged and playing. The story is heartbreaking at times, but when you learn what happened you will be glad you took this journey.
