Everybody's Gone to the Rapture
Systems: PlayStation 4, Windows, Steam OS
Release Date: August 11, 2015 & April 16, 2015
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
Developer: The Chinese Room
Time Spent: 10 Hours 42 Minutes
When I first started playing Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, I had intended on filming everything and doing another video walkthrough/playthrough series for the YouTubes, but after my first time playing and just basking in the beauty that The Chinese Room created, I decided that this game and experience was instead going to be just for me. Granted, there were some caveats as I did film some sequences that I knew I would want to revisit, like The Mourning Tree sequence, as well as the end of the game and the final ascent up to the observatory. With only a couple of exceptions, I didn't want to have to worry about whether I was getting a good angle on something that was happening or fear that I might have missed something story-wise in-game and would later be chastised by the greater internet community, who are also professional cinematographers.
My biggest critique for Everybody's Gone to the Rapture has nothing to do with the movement speed, which probably won't surprise people who know me, but was with how the story was communicated throughout the game, but that seems to be my general critique with exploration walking-sims where bits of information and story are scattered throughout the playable area. Here, you have the light that travels around that you're supposed to follow, the lights that appear in locations that you discover yourself, phonebooths that ring, and radios that all transmit information and little story points connecting various characters to each other and the overarching story. There's a lot that can be missed. Before passing out of an area, I would constantly worry if I had missed something that was not required to move the game along, but still important to the story. After playing the game, I did read the Wikipedia article just to make sure that I had gotten the main points of the plot, similar to how I finished Blood Meridian or even perusing YouTube lore videos for Dark Souls II. There were some finer points of the story that I missed, glossed over, or had just completely forgotten, but I'm thankful that I got the basic gist of what happened. Except I don't think I registered that the events in Naughton later became a worldwide phenomenon, although you think I would've with the event being right there in the title.
I had wondered if the title was just a metaphor since the player is moving about the world, watching past moments from people's lives as interpreted and broadcast by The Signal. I also wasn't entirely sure what it was that the player was supposed to be as they wandered through this idyllic English countryside. There were no legs when you looked down, but that's not entirely uncommon for first-person perspective games, as it's more rare to see legs/feet. I did notice that when I was moving through water that there were ripples and a sloshing sound, which implied that there were legs attached to this consciousness, but that could've also just been something to do with how movement worked in Cryengine. I don't know, I'm not a developer, and ultimately, I don't feel that what the player was was necessary to enjoy and take in the story.
I am glad that I played Everybody's Gone to the Rapture at this moment in time. Had I played it in the before times, my laptop would not have been able to handle the game cranked up to the highest settings. Plus, the story here revolving around people suddenly experiencing some mysterious illness before dying and in some cases, disappearing completely, does really hit different now in the years following the outbreak of the pandemic. And, equally so, have been my reactions to the story now that I am a parent. Seeing an abandoned suitcase along a country road with a lone teddy bear does hit so much harder than it would have just five years ago. And I'm thankful for that because I love it when a game can have an emotional effect on me, especially little things like that little bear. Just waiting there. For the rest of eternity.
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