From the review: "Originally released as mod for Half-life 2 in 2008, Dear Esther has been redesigned with completely new level design and visuals, extended voice work, and re-orchestration of the soundtrack. Funding for the project's redesign was provided by an investment from the Indie Fund. The investment amount for the project was recouped in a mere five and a half hours and sold over 16,000 copies in under 24 hours after its release on Steam."
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.