Critical Gamer writes: Playing Dear Esther is like walking through a poem. Every path is a verse, each step taken with slow thoughtfulness, until you arrive at a destination full of misunderstood meaning. There are no monsters to fight, no puzzles to solve, no platforms to jump, no dialogue options to choose – nothing. There is one course to take: walk (not run) around a somber, abandoned island through the eyes of an unknown traveller as you ponder the dramatic musings of a troubled narrator. Some will call this a pretentious waste of time and money while others hold it up as a tribute to art itself, but where you fall between those contrasting viewpoints will largely depend on your expectations, your willingness to relinquish almost any semblance of gameplay, and your tolerance for poetic nonsense.
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.
