Gameyarn - "Being a fan of story-driven games I have been looking forward to Dear Esther for quite some time. Having gained high praise from many of my trusted sources, I was anxious to dive right in.
The plot is relayed through a narrator, presumably the protagonist, who simply talks while you walk around an island. You never interact with anything, you simply walk from point A to point B. Luckily the visuals on the island are quite beautiful and the idea of a story being told about the real world while you walk around in a metaphorical world is something quite interesting."
The Chinese Room's Dear Esther goes free on Steam to celebrate the 10th anniversary of this foundational title.
Eh.
I mean free is free, but I found this to be a boring slog.
Not to mention this remasters actually made the game look worse in multiple areas.
I did quite like their A Machine for Pigs and Everybody's Gone to the Rapture though.
On Valentine's Day a decade ago, Dear Esther went from a Source Engine mod to a full-fledged indie game, catalyzing the "walking sim" genre. How does it measure up today?
"The China-based indie games publisher Secret Mode and Brighton-based (the UK) indie games developer The Chinese Room, are today very pleased to announce that they will celebrate the tenth anniversary of "Dear Esther" by making the genre-defining 2012 narrative exploration game free to download from February 14th to February 15th via Steam." - Jonas Ek, TGG.
