What Remains of Edith Finch

What Remains of Edith Finch (WREF) is another great entry into the genre of narrative driven exploration games. It stands with the better examples such as Gone Home, Tacoma and Firewatch. Its story tells of the individual and often horrific fates that many of Edith Finch's family members have met. While exploring the old and increasingly surreal house of the Finches, one stumbles upon letters or journal entries that then unfold into little vignettes, sort of mini games, that vary widely in tone. While itself having a narrative tone that hints at the existential horror of Lovecraft's work or the Vanishing of Ethan Carter to name a video game example, the vignettes themselves are at times horrific, colourful, poetic or fantastical. They change up the visual presentation as well as interaction with the game. And it is especially through its interactive design that the game manages to open up a tactile sense of its world, its house and its story. This is achieved by the player being able to see the body of Edith when looking down, seeing her hands and legs, while standing, walking, when crawling on all fours. Furthermore, interacting with the environment almost always demands more of you than a simple push of a button. You will need to drag the controller stick into the direction of where you want a door to open for example. These are very fine details of game design that I feel are the greatest strength of WREF and give you a real sense of who and where you are. While the game is beautifully presented, well written and performed, it is its smart game design that stays with me. Edith Finch is beautiful, but I feel like even though I connected to its place and character, its story did not speak to me as strongly as I wanted it to. This is perhaps more down to personal taste than anything else, and since I am nonetheless interested in the potential of narrative exploration in video games I can highly recommend WREF to whoever shares this curiosity.

This game is something special. This game is more like movie and th story is told in a very special way.

Score – 8/10 (Recommended) Despite only taking two hours to complete, your morbid curiosity will compel you to learn how each member of the cursed Finch family met their untimely demise. Giant Sparrow went to great efforts in making this walking simulator stand out from the competition thanks to creative ways of telling the story as well as a beautiful house to explore.

So this is not a game. It's a story, and a story well told. It is two hours long, with limited exploration and brief minigames along its course. If you like walking sims and hungry for good storytelling and atmospheric locations, 'Edith Finch' is a must play. And if you want to play a single walking sim game, just to know the genre, it is a great choice.

This is one of the most emotionally resonent 'games' I have ever played. The sheer creativity is astounding. Every story is presented in a way that is touching, engaging and intriguing. Truly a phenomenal experience that I'll remember for quite a while. It is a little short though, but I promise this is something you want to try out.