“Dear Esther” is difficult to categorize.
It’s an adventure game with no puzzles and no interactivity.
It’s a single-player first-person game with no combat.
It has some of the most beautiful environments ever rendered in a game — largely because there are no characters to take up space on the screen — yet manages to tell an emotionally compelling story.
It’s just over an hour, almost insultingly short for a $10 game.
And yet the sheer level of atmosphere and immersion make it a stunning, worthwhile experience.
“Dear Esther” has the player exploring a mysterious island somewhere off the coast of England.
As the player progresses along the path to the top of the ghostly aerial island, a narrator reads from letters he has written to his deceased wife Esther. Though increasingly incoherent, the well-voiced narrative poetically sets up the history of the island and the dying narrator’s personal tragedy.
Easily the strongest point of the game, the visuals shift between comforting natural beauty and haunting otherworldliness. The player journeys through the island’s beaches and rivers and into its imposing caves before emerging for the game’s conclusion. The otherwise normal island is littered with jarring details that range from shipwrecks and abandoned homes to molecular diagrams and biblical verses painted on cliffs in glowing paint.
Every element of “Dear Esther,” from the visuals to the music to the narrative, supports the theme of tragedy and its aftermath.
The narrator tells of characters named Donnelly and Jacobson, all of whom had some dealing with the island. He explores the biblical story of Paul on the road to Damascus and muses on monks and shepherds, none of whom remain on the island.
By the end, it’s unclear which parts of the game are real or metaphorical, given that the narrator is the definition of unreliable, with clues of his failing physical and mental health seen and heard throughout.
“Dear Esther” is all story and aesthetics but almost no actual gameplay.
Though there are some branching paths on the island, and more exploration can lead to more readings from the narrator’s letters, there are no puzzles or interactive elements whatsoever, other than the possibility of death by falling or drowning. It makes the game more of a contemplative, focused experience but also a boring one if the story doesn’t grab you.
Nevertheless, the thought-provoking narrative and impeccably haunting atmosphere make “Dear Esther” a rich, if short, experience. Anyone after a game with a higher degree of artistic beauty, emotional engagement and intellectual depth should definitely check it out.
thescene@theeagleonline.com
