What Remains of Edith Finch

I don’t write about video games here very often. Which is a little strange, considering I’ve played them since Space Invaders on the Atari VCS back in 1979 and have owned most of the consoles that came out since, over the years. But anyway, I suppose this means that a game has to be something really special to warrant a comment here.

So What Remains of Edith Finch– what a lovely game. Maybe ‘game’ is the wrong description- this was more of an experience. I think this genre of game is called a ‘walking simulator’, and basically consists of the player, through a first-person perspective, exploring a richly detailed creation, usually uncovering some kind of mystery or larger narrative by just looking around and, well, your natural curiosity tells the story. The genius of these games is how subtle they can be, and how the player doesn’t feel ‘forced’ to follow any direct path. At its best, any progression should feel natural and honest, and it can be surprising how intense the experience can be.

Intense is how I would describe my favourite game on the PS4 –  Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture, another ‘walking simulator’ and a spooky and mesmerising work of real beauty. Genuinely a piece of art rather than ‘just’ a game, I found it to be a thoroughly engaging and really transformative experience as I explored a 1980s English village at the end of the world. It was so affecting that I can still recall moments in it as powerful as anything in a recent movie. Well, What Remains of Edith Finch is right up there with Rapture in quality, possibly aided, ironically, by it being a much shorter experience. I think a playthrough of this would take between two and three hours- which might seem a bit short, but the quality really makes up for it. This is a fantasy that can haunt your dreams and linger in your daylight fancies.

What Remains of Edith Finch is a story about stories, of memories and the stories we tell ourselves and each other. Its mostly a story about loss and grief, fairly heavyweight topics for a game, but quite enthralling here in an exploration of the past, of a family history, and what may be a curse. Through the games magical setting (unwrapping each memory/story room by room while exploring the Finch family home, deserted out on a misty, lushly forested island) the player experiences, through gameplay, the memories of each departed member of the family, slowly building a map of the Finch family tree and one final ‘twist’.

I would love to describe some of the pleasures and surprises of this game and its stories, and at this point with the game having been out for a few years I’m hardly in spoiler territory but really, I can’t do it. I just don’t want to risk spoiling anything of this beautiful experience- it looks utterly gorgeous and is blessed with a lovely soundtrack from Jeff Russo (who scored the Fargo tv series, as well as Altered Carbon) that complements those images. As I’ve gotten older and somewhat weary of the huge 100+ hour epic experiences and noisy violent gunfights of modern gaming, I’ve really leaned towards these more thoughtful games. You can lose yourself in them and realise part of the joy of videogames of old- back when they were new and we didn’t know what they could be, these are experiences to treasure and remember.

What Remains of Edith Finch has just recently been added to the Xbox Gamepass service, so is free to play for subscribers.