Shaun Munro reviews What Remains of Edith Finch…
Offering up a welcome reprieve from the seemingly endless deluge of blockbuster titles released so far this year, Giant Sparrow follows their acclaimed 2012 adventure title The Unfinished Swan with a “walking simulator” that spreads plenty of goodwill for the oft-maligned genre. The sepulchral What Remains of Edith Finch is a provocative, if frustratingly brief, rumination on life and death that effortlessly burrows its way under the skin.
The player takes control of the title character, the sole survivor of the Finch family, who revisits her ancestors’ exorbitant Washington mansion in order to investigate the lives of her improbably long list of dead relatives who lived there. Exploring the bedrooms belonging to each family member, Edith discovers various documents and objects which unlock the key to their tragic final moments.
At first, those who’ve immersed themselves in the more sprawling worlds of, say, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter and Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture, may deem this game’s more rigid linearity to somewhat undermine the chilly, detached atmosphere, but as players become more progressively funneled through Giant Sparrow’s carefully curated experience, it becomes clear why they’ve gone this route, and the end result largely justifies the approach.
Playing through the often hyper-surreal bucket-kicking moments of the various Finch family members is a delightfully eerie experience, memorably realised in two instances in particular as an insane comic book-esque riff on a slasher film (complete with John Carpenter’s Halloween theme serving as the background music), and a cliched adventure RPG game with a novel, literally attention-grabbing twist. To say any more would risk ruining some of the game’s many surprises and better moments, but needless to say, never has chopping off fish heads felt so thoroughly compelling and, stranger still, emotionally loaded.
It would’ve been easy for a game so immersed in the finality of death to feel overly dour, but the countless wry, well-peppered doses of gallows humour go a long way towards remedying this. Some of the death scenes are legitimately, unexpectedly hilarious, and several monologues straight-up confront the innate, hysterical absurdity of existence and sheer insane odds of this game even existing, or of me even being able to write this review, or of you even reading it.
It is a game refusing to dine out solely on its mood, also offering up a wealth of wit, numerous references to the horror genre (of course there’s a beleaguered Finch relative named Barbara), and in one deservedly blatant moment later on, a tip of the hat to the developer’s own prior game.
Visually, most probably aren’t expecting miracles here, but this is a gorgeous-looking title all the same. The level of detail while playing on PC, from the intricacy of small, seemingly insignificant objects to the moody, eye-popping lighting effects, are immense for such a “small” game, though this also goes a way to explain why the final product has probably taken so long to arrive after being first revealed many years ago. This sort of polish cannot be rushed.
In fairness, the game isn’t totally immaculate, though, being privy to some flat textures on occasion, and it’s annoying how the camera’s perspective is often forced towards wherever the on-screen narrated text materialises within the environment, especially if you’re busy gazing at something else.
However, this not-so-subtle nudging of the player is clearly in the service of crafting a lean, fat-free experience that swiftly shepherds them from story to story with the utmost economy, and is therefore easy enough to forgive. In a year where there’s an innumerable amount of 50-hour AAA games to beast through, that feels like a not inconsiderable mercy (even if the game’s so great you’ll absolutely wish it were longer in retrospect).
Aurally, Jeff Russo’s score lays a marvelously melancholic foundation, working in perfect concert with excellent voice acting across the board and crunchy naturalistic sound design that makes playing with headphones, preferably in the middle of the night, the absolute best way to bathe yourself in the game’s airy moodscape.
Even in all of its grim morbidity, though, What Remains of Edith Finch is a perplexingly meditative, even quite relaxing game which trades the scares you might expect for a more pervasively, quietly creepy tone throughout. It eventually takes a left-turn into hopeful territory with an impressively poignant and heartbreaking – if arguably somewhat syrupy – ending, an achievement all the more laudable considering the game’s mere two-hour-ish length, and how so many much larger, longer games struggle to score anywhere near this level of visceral impact.
Some of the jankier sections – largely where you’re controlling an animal – can begin to verge on irritating, but at least they end before they get truly aggravating, ensuring the overwhelming majority of this title is pure prime rib material. It is not a game for those who put a premium on exploration or hate being held by the hand, and it won’t change anyone’s mind about the walking sim genre, but this is absolutely one of its best efforts to date, telling an array of diverse tales that cleverly satirise not only contemporary gaming but also pop-culture as a whole, resulting in an ambitious step forward for its intrepid development team.
Also, stick around for the credits, because they’re probably some of the best you’ll see all year.
Pros:
+ Beautiful visuals and impeccable sound across the board
+ Excellent tonal balance
+ Memorable stories you’ll want to replay
Cons:
– It’s disappointingly short
– The ending won’t be to all tastes
Rating: 8/10
Reviewed for PC (also available on PS4).
What Remains of Edith Finch is available now.
Shaun Munro – Follow me on Twitter for more video game rambling.
Originally published April 26, 2017. Updated April 16, 2018.
