The Vanishing of Ethan Carter

Extremely pretty environments. Dumb plot that thinks it's clever. Idiotic, trial-and-error gameplay. Not worth your time.

I heard good things about Ethan Carter back when it came out and even recently from a coworker. So, seeing that I have the game on Epic, I decided to give the Redux version a try. My initial impressions were quite positive: the graphics are quite good, the music is pretty nice (if not terribly memorable), and Miłogost Reczek has a good voice. Unfortunately, that's about where the positives end. I quickly discovered that the game not only doesn't hold the player's hand - which I'd be fine with - but it seems to actively discourage being played. There are no directions given, no hints or clues as to where to go (it's like the game expects you to just know this), no map of even the most rudimentary variety and the environments are absolutely huge with hardly anything to do in them. It's absolutely unplayable without a guide, you'll just run around blindly, hoping to stumble upon anything at all. All this makes Ethan Carter a mind-numbingly boring experience that drags horribly. On the technical side of things the game is admittedly quite stable, I never had a single issue, crash or even frame drop. On the other hand, after launching it again the next day I discovered that the game reverted me back to the default non-inverted mouse look (which is actually inverted, but Quake swapped the defaults from Duke 3D). Also, there's no jump button, which feels just wrong (and caused me to keep zooming in instead while running around), and sometimes the lip-synching on NPCs didn't match their dialogues at all. And lastly, all the letters and notes you find throughout the game are in English only, even if you set another language in the settings. Why? Overall, a terrible waste of time that I cannot in good conscience recommend to anyone who values that precious commodity.

Being a large fan of games with open worlds that can be explored, this game does not disappoint. Into the main story, I believe I have only uncovered a few plot points; however, I spent over an hour just 'exploring'. It seems the game has its confines; yet, the developers made the world seem very expansive and it as if they almost 'guide' you onto the main trail regardless of the desire to wander. The idea of having a 'sixth sense' to build a picture of what happened is rather clever in its approach and not something I have ever seen before in a game. The narrative as you move along is a nice touch; the 'clue' text which apparently remains behind as you visit it is also one of those "wish they did this back then" cool factors. This game is almost like playing in a movie, where you are in control of the story as it develops. The reason I gave this a high score is because I was extremely impressed by the graphics, the clever mechanics used to tell the story and the fact that I spent an hour of my life enjoying walking through the world these developers created. If anything, my stress levels went down through that serene walk through the woods, along the shoreline of that lake and viewing the vista of the place I would soon visit. Should these developers produce another game of this caliber, I will gladly part with some more of my shekels.

The game itself might not have been perfect at release, especially the save system, but the patches released shortly afterwards took care of that and several other glitches. The game experience is unique and rewarding for those who pay attention. There is a handful of key locations and scenes in the open world that give away tidbids of the story. Some are associated with a puzzle, some are not. The game is quite minimalistic in game mechanics but the gorgeous environment and music make up for that aplenty. On the other hand, you might get stuck a couple of times as it is not always apparent what to do next. I take that as a positive though. I knew in advance the game is of the short variety so I didn't take the speedrun approach and explored the heck out of the beautiful photogrammetrized world. When I finally got stuck towards the end, I had already spent over 5 hours in the game. The originality of the authors to take the FP engine, normally associated with mindless action, and merge it with adventure elements and a genuine mystery plot, must be commended. I agree with the authors that this is the future of gaming, or at least one of them. Bottomline, with the patches available now, I recommend The Vanishing of Ethan Carter to any player willing to try something new.

Recognized the eastern european churches from some books I read before going there. Interesting stories unfold. Graphics are good. The Redux version was super smooth for me. The original had a small stutter.I liked how the stories were tied together. However some people might not like the ending.