The Suicide of Rachel Foster

The story, the most important part of a walking simulator like this, is absolutely awful. It may count as a spoiler but it's important to know if you're going to play the game, because at the end of the game the message the game wants you to have is "society was wrong for judging the relationship between this middle-aged man and this 16 year old girl". The mother blames the girl, the protagonist talks endlessly about how good a man her father was, and the entire game is trying to get you to conclude that these two were simply victims of circumstance, and not that the man old enough to be her father had a relationship that very likely began when she was 15, that eventually lead to her death, was very much in the wrong and there is *nothing* in the actual actions of the characters to suggest anything other than a middle-aged father taking advantage of a vulnerable girl.

A lot of other reviews have already talked about the gameplay extensively, so I'll summarize that really quick here; It tries to be Firewatch, but it's not. It's first person perspective, free-roam, and your only source of communication with any other person is a walkie-talkie. It's just fine. The writing is just fine, the voice acting is just fine, the world you can explore is just fine- if not way bigger and emptier than is necessary or used. But none of that deserves the one I give, and I only give one because I cannot give zero. The story is horrendous. This game obviously focuses on dark themes, it's in the title, but there's way more going on than just that. On top of being the terrible handling of said dark themes, the writing around the game tries to justify pedophilia, and the character dialogue just about demands you forgive the pedophile. The game tries to walk on the knife's edge of content that is generally refered to in fiction as edgy, but it doesn't just fall over, it snaps the blade on the way down and tears down anything good the game had to offer. Please do not support this kind of writing. Do not buy.

...but they didn't. While the story was bland, "choices" don't matter even a single bit the game managed one single thing. Making me feel disgusted. It's a story about the father of the main character. You roam through a hotel you grew up in as a child. Your father basically held a 15-16 year old girl hostage, raped and impregnated her until she committed suicide. This also destroyed the family obviously. As you roam through the hotel for notes of the father a mysterious man is on the phone with you. As you progress with the 100% linear story you learn basically nothing new. With everything you find you just basically start to blame the victim more and more, and it get's clear that your character sees absolutely nothing wrong with the actions of your father. Spoilers: Your mom killed the rape victim ("out of jealousy" apparently) and as if it couldn't get any more disgusting the man on the phone is her brother who thought your father raping his sister was the best thing ever and absolutely pure. Everything you find just suggests that "the girl loved him" and it was real love. They don't even suggest anything else. In the very end her brother kills himself and you can either kill yourself as well or sell the hotel. That's it. That's the only choice you actually have in the entire game. The game chose to make a story driven heavy topic horror game but just made a bland, pedophilia glorifying and absolutely predictable walking simulator. The Devs could've used this hard theme to make it a absolutely Psycho-Thriller like experience with some plottwists and actual choices. But they didn't. I'm not sure if they were just overwhelmed with the topic and decided to just cut it to be over with it or if they actually thought this would be a good game. Even if it was just for provocation to "rise awareness" or something they did a really bad job at it since it's still boring and not conclusive. As of now it just seems like the devs are trying to excuse pedophilia.

My game time on this game is 4hours and I looked at most rooms in detail. TLDR: this is Gone Home with amazing graphics and none of the spark. This is an exploration game inside a beautifully detailed hotel. With a sort of spooky but not really story. I'm happy that someone is spending money on this genre. PROS: - Probably nicest looking game I've played in 2020 - Lots of details, I like that when you look at something there's a small description - There's a moment in the story that had my heart racing and very spooky CONS: - SUPER SHORT - World is very detailed but not interactive - Hotel is huge and 50%+ of it isn't used for anything. - Underwhelming story - The gameplay mechanics are fairly weak overall - Amateur game design in the first few chapters. Find a tin of food and microwave it. come on! Comments to developers for their next game: - Amazing what a small team made this huge world. The texture work on these props is top notch! - It's much cheaper to write text descriptions of everything. If you have money, add a VO so the world isn't so sterile. e.g. "Murder Eyes" portrait in the hallway... why not have Nicole. This would extend gameplay - If budget allows create secondary plots that do not use the game's "To Do" system. They are just there in the background but create more stuff to do. You sort of had this with "vandals" and all the crawl spaces.