What Remains of Edith Finch is a narrative driven game about Edith Finch as she returns to her abandoned childhood and family home. The story centres around the theme of death, and the unfortunate luck of the Finch family when it comes to death. The game is a walking simulator with a linear path laid of for you to follow. The game is in a lot of aspects more akin to a move, than a game. The game does not include a lot of gameplay apart from walking. The game is only good if you want a narrative driven game that does not include any gameplay. The game is however quite good if you want a narrative driven game and don’t mind that it does not have any gameplay.
The game excels at blending visuals, audio and narration together into a flawless concoction. The Finch home features an astounding environment with an extreme level of detail that makes the home feel lived in; the environment tells its own story of the people who used to live here. There are few, if any game that does the environmental storytelling better than What Remains of Edith Finch. The sound design is phenomenal, with excellent soundtracks, ambient sound, audio effects and a very good voice performance. The love and effort the developers have put into this game is very apparent.
The narrative is executed well, however the foundation of the narrative is shaky and falls apart if you think too hard about it. The game has a lot of small story-lines interwoven together, and some of these are very good. However the game has a tendency to leave a lot to ambiguity, which means that several story-lines feel unfinished. Events have been created because the narrative needs them; the game is based upon a premise, but the game never explores or explains how this premise is justified. This means that when you start thinking more deeply about the narrative and plot, a lot of it falls apart. The more and more I think about the plot, the more and more flaws I see. Having said this, I don’t think you will necessarily notice this during the play-through as the execution of the story is so good that it hides the underlying structural flaws very well. The game is very good at telling a story from a technical perspective. It is quite good at using gameplay elements in different manners to tell a narrative. How the narrative is told is of more interest than the plot.
Even with the underlying structural flaws there are still several good narrative beats that are worth playing and experiencing. The game is so well executed that it is worth playing due to the sheer quality and love put into the game. If you want a short narrative driven experience with minimal gameplay and an excellent presentation, this game is for you. I enjoyed my short time with the game immensely.
| Playtime | 2.5 Hours |
| Game release date | 24 April 2017 |
| Review release date | 25 August 2024 |
| Light sensitivity | No issues |
| Sound sensitivity | No issues |
| Motion sickness | To an extent it is always present, with some sections making it worse. Not the worst I have encountered, but if you are sensitive you are going to struggle with motion sickness in this game. |
| Steam | Metacritic Metascore (88) |