"I’ve been a fan of Dear Esther since it was a small mod for Half-Life 2 and now it has it’s own completely revamped, beautiful remake. This game came on sale today on Steam and I purchased it instantly, downloaded it and got to playing it.
This game is beautiful, the graphics are stunning and it really goes to show how versatile the Source Engine really is. The Source Engine has still got it!"
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.
And that answers my earlier question, thanks! Solid review, looks like an OK game.