Everybody's Gone to the Rapture
Year: 2015
Developer: The Chinese Room Publisher: Sony Santa Monica Platform: PS4 PEGI: 16 Published: 2015 (Legacy Review) |
Click here for an in-depth analysis of the story and its themes
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Many are quick to judge video games that have few actual gameplay mechanics. But games like Gone Home proved that you do not need to have anything more than a playable character and some notes scattered around an interesting and highly detailed environment to provide one of the most engaging storytelling experiences ever delivered in gaming.
For developer The Chinese Room, Everybody's Gone To The Rapture is not their first attempt at an interactive storytelling experience. Seeing as they previously developed Dear Esther, a game that received a relatively mixed reception, Everybody's Gone To The Rapture is an evolution of this particular genre and one that builds on what didn't work so well for them the first time around. Rapture is bigger and bolder than anything that currently exists in this genre and with an extremely intriguing story to boot.
Everybody's Gone To The Rapture tells the tale of Yaughton, a fictional village in Shropshire, England. It's the late 1980's and the town has been quarantined due to an outbreak of the Spanish Flu...except the townsfolk aren't there any more; they've disappeared. As you explore the village and its surrounding countryside you begin to unravel the mystery behind their disappearance, the quarantine, and begin to learn the inner workings of their personal relationships with each other. Following six main characters in a series of flashbacks told out of chronological order, you learn about the lives of Jeremy, Wendy, Frank, Lizzie, Stephen, and Kate in great detail both before and during the mysterious event.
It's a story you can allow yourself to get deeply invested in thanks to there being no other game mechanics besides moving and occasionally interacting with objects. It's a relatively long tale too coming in at around 5-6 hours depending on how much of the village you choose to explore and how often you deviate from the glowing ball that serves as your guide.
The story is superb in terms of character development and allowing the player to become involved in the situation, but it is absolutely pants at explaining what on earth is going on. For the majority of the game I wondered whether it was just trying to build me up for a big reveal at the end, but instead the issue of what caused this event is skirted around, alluded to with possibilities and potentials instead of tackled head on to give you the answer to what you started this journey on in the first place.
Maybe there's something I'm missing, something that will take me months to piece together what with all the secret messages the game is giving you if you look hard enough, but even after nearly three playthroughs of the game I can truly say I know very little more about this event than I did when I started the game for the first time. I almost feel robbed that I have not found the answers to the questions I had when I started the game, the questions that made me want to start the game in the first place.
For developer The Chinese Room, Everybody's Gone To The Rapture is not their first attempt at an interactive storytelling experience. Seeing as they previously developed Dear Esther, a game that received a relatively mixed reception, Everybody's Gone To The Rapture is an evolution of this particular genre and one that builds on what didn't work so well for them the first time around. Rapture is bigger and bolder than anything that currently exists in this genre and with an extremely intriguing story to boot.
Everybody's Gone To The Rapture tells the tale of Yaughton, a fictional village in Shropshire, England. It's the late 1980's and the town has been quarantined due to an outbreak of the Spanish Flu...except the townsfolk aren't there any more; they've disappeared. As you explore the village and its surrounding countryside you begin to unravel the mystery behind their disappearance, the quarantine, and begin to learn the inner workings of their personal relationships with each other. Following six main characters in a series of flashbacks told out of chronological order, you learn about the lives of Jeremy, Wendy, Frank, Lizzie, Stephen, and Kate in great detail both before and during the mysterious event.
It's a story you can allow yourself to get deeply invested in thanks to there being no other game mechanics besides moving and occasionally interacting with objects. It's a relatively long tale too coming in at around 5-6 hours depending on how much of the village you choose to explore and how often you deviate from the glowing ball that serves as your guide.
The story is superb in terms of character development and allowing the player to become involved in the situation, but it is absolutely pants at explaining what on earth is going on. For the majority of the game I wondered whether it was just trying to build me up for a big reveal at the end, but instead the issue of what caused this event is skirted around, alluded to with possibilities and potentials instead of tackled head on to give you the answer to what you started this journey on in the first place.
Maybe there's something I'm missing, something that will take me months to piece together what with all the secret messages the game is giving you if you look hard enough, but even after nearly three playthroughs of the game I can truly say I know very little more about this event than I did when I started the game for the first time. I almost feel robbed that I have not found the answers to the questions I had when I started the game, the questions that made me want to start the game in the first place.
As an interactive storytelling experience, Everybody's Gone To The Rapture features next to no gameplay you would traditionally associate with video games. For the entire length of your time in Yaughton you will walk and you will listen to characters talking, the wind blowing in the leaves, and to the choir soundtrack; but you will do nothing else...you just walk. Now as long as you know and accept that you're going to have a good time in Yaughton, but if you're expecting puzzles or QTE's or even just the ability to have a play around with some objects in the game world, no dice my friend. You can open doors and you can answer ringing telephones, you can listen to radio broadcasts and you can stand in the local pub soaking in what it feels like to be British (for our international readers) or just soaking in your normal life through the power of your PS4 (for any British readers).
It's a relaxing experience, though it is a little on the slow side. No, not in terms of story pacing, in terms of actual movement speed. Not a common complaint you would hear in a video games review, the speed of your walk, though when the only gameplay mechanic is walking and that walking is much, much slower than that of a normal human being, it turns what should be an enjoyable experience into a somewhat tedious one. Many reviews neglected to notice that there was indeed a 'sprint' button by holding the R2 button, but rather than it be a sprint as the entire gaming community knows it, it's actually a hobble along slightly faster button. In a linear experience like Dear Esther this would not have been a problem, the story would have been timed to the length of time it would take the player to walk the game. But for Everybody's Gone To The Rapture, which is a more open ended experience that can require some backtracking, it's really really annoying.
Besides the interesting story, the games visual presentation is among one of the big things that got Everybody's Gone To The Rapture really noticed by the mainstream gaming community. Running off the latest iteration of the Cry Engine, that being used in Ryse: Son of Rome and the upcoming Hunt: Horrors of the Gilded Age. It is the first time that this engine has been used on the PS4 and I have to say it is simply gorgeous to look at. With there being no character models to render or animate, as well as no set-pieces like there is in most games, Rapture's visuals are at times photo-realistic and extremely beautiful to look at. The village of Yaughton is very highly detailed with lots of visual secrets hidden around too. However, due to the sheer size of Yaughton and its single loading screen, there are noticeable, regular frame rate drops. When exploring in houses and focusing in on small objects, the frame rate sits on a brilliant 60FPS, but when exploring more open areas such as the corn fields or the caravan park it can drop to below 30FPS on a regular basis. It's not a game ruining experience, but it certainly breaks the immersion.
On top of the great visuals, Everybody's Gone To The Rapture's audio work is among the finest in recent years. With a choir soundtrack that is extremely haunting, yet oddly charming and joyful, it's quality and atmospheric qualities rival that of The Last of Us' melancholy acoustic guitar. The voice acting is simply superb as well. With no real visual representation of the characters beyond a glowing light, you rely on the voices alone to create the characters and these performers give some of the highest quality performances in video gaming, akin to that of The Stanley Parable's Narrator.
If you look at the whole product of Everybody's Gone To The Rapture, it's clear to see that The Chinese Room have crafted a simply astounding interactive story. Yet it's the small problems that make the game fall at the first hurdle to people who don't usually have the patience for this kind of game. With it's unforgivable slow walking speed and barely useful slightly faster walking speed button as well as it's lack of explanation on the questions you have going into the game it's an extremely clever game that makes some extremely stupid mistakes.
But for those of you who are patient gamers, those who understand exactly what the game requires of you and for those of you willing to put in extra playthroughs to find all of the secrets and unravel the mystery, Everybody's Gone To The Rapture is a fantastic experience.
It's a relaxing experience, though it is a little on the slow side. No, not in terms of story pacing, in terms of actual movement speed. Not a common complaint you would hear in a video games review, the speed of your walk, though when the only gameplay mechanic is walking and that walking is much, much slower than that of a normal human being, it turns what should be an enjoyable experience into a somewhat tedious one. Many reviews neglected to notice that there was indeed a 'sprint' button by holding the R2 button, but rather than it be a sprint as the entire gaming community knows it, it's actually a hobble along slightly faster button. In a linear experience like Dear Esther this would not have been a problem, the story would have been timed to the length of time it would take the player to walk the game. But for Everybody's Gone To The Rapture, which is a more open ended experience that can require some backtracking, it's really really annoying.
Besides the interesting story, the games visual presentation is among one of the big things that got Everybody's Gone To The Rapture really noticed by the mainstream gaming community. Running off the latest iteration of the Cry Engine, that being used in Ryse: Son of Rome and the upcoming Hunt: Horrors of the Gilded Age. It is the first time that this engine has been used on the PS4 and I have to say it is simply gorgeous to look at. With there being no character models to render or animate, as well as no set-pieces like there is in most games, Rapture's visuals are at times photo-realistic and extremely beautiful to look at. The village of Yaughton is very highly detailed with lots of visual secrets hidden around too. However, due to the sheer size of Yaughton and its single loading screen, there are noticeable, regular frame rate drops. When exploring in houses and focusing in on small objects, the frame rate sits on a brilliant 60FPS, but when exploring more open areas such as the corn fields or the caravan park it can drop to below 30FPS on a regular basis. It's not a game ruining experience, but it certainly breaks the immersion.
On top of the great visuals, Everybody's Gone To The Rapture's audio work is among the finest in recent years. With a choir soundtrack that is extremely haunting, yet oddly charming and joyful, it's quality and atmospheric qualities rival that of The Last of Us' melancholy acoustic guitar. The voice acting is simply superb as well. With no real visual representation of the characters beyond a glowing light, you rely on the voices alone to create the characters and these performers give some of the highest quality performances in video gaming, akin to that of The Stanley Parable's Narrator.
If you look at the whole product of Everybody's Gone To The Rapture, it's clear to see that The Chinese Room have crafted a simply astounding interactive story. Yet it's the small problems that make the game fall at the first hurdle to people who don't usually have the patience for this kind of game. With it's unforgivable slow walking speed and barely useful slightly faster walking speed button as well as it's lack of explanation on the questions you have going into the game it's an extremely clever game that makes some extremely stupid mistakes.
But for those of you who are patient gamers, those who understand exactly what the game requires of you and for those of you willing to put in extra playthroughs to find all of the secrets and unravel the mystery, Everybody's Gone To The Rapture is a fantastic experience.