In Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture, the game drops you off with no explanation, no backstory for your character, and no tutorial, save for the title insert. Instead, you are dropped off in a scenic view of the town area you will soon explore, wondering the meaning behind the title and if these people have actually gone to the Rapture, presuming it is probably not as simple as that. One thing is made abundantly clear though as you begin to explore: some event happened, something that caused the people of this town to be no more.
Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture is a non-FPS game with a focus on spatial storytelling, or as many people in the gaming community “fondly” call it, a “walking simulator”. Similar to Gone Home, the player is expected to explore the town to try to piece together what happened to everybody. Unlike Gone Home, you are a nameless, almost entity-less protagonist, with no backstory tying you to this town, save for your curiosity.
This game has a far larger environment than is typically expected for a game focused on spatial storytelling, exploring a whole town, that it may seem daunting at first to figure out where to go in blind, but the game provides clues as to where to go. First is the use audio cues, hearing harsh static contrasting with the almost serene environment you explore guides you to find the machines causing that noise, in which you hear recordings that explain a bit of the town’s perspectives, the first one also providing another clue to look out for in the game, saying to “follow the light”. This is soon made clear when a few minutes later you see strange particles and balls of lights that clearly do not conform with this town, or with the expected physics, that you feel compelled to investigate these lights, in which helps to uncover the game’s story. In this way, the game manages to gently guide the players without leaving them lost and overwhelmed, while also not forcing to follow along the path if they choose not to.
Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture storytelling format is intriguing in that, as you soon find out, that while the game follows one event, the player finds out there are different lights that follow the perspective of different characters leading up to the disappearance. It is entirely possible to explore the town while ignoring the lights, to completely miss one ‘character’ light, or to simply break off partway of one of the light’s progression path and move on to a different light. With all these layers of story for this one overarching events, the stories and clues you pick up completely alter the way you may view the town residents you come to know depending on the storylines you have acquired. While I do not wish to spoil it for anybody wishing to play the game, in my first playthrough, where I had several instances of breaking off from several lights storylines and missing one light entirely, I had a more disapproving view on some characters and their reactions then when I played through a second time and experience all the storylines completely. It takes the concept of ‘hearing one side of a person’s story’ and expand it to multiple perspectives, adding a depth and layer to this town and making it feel quite alive, despite the lack of residents.
The story in Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture extends far beyond just the stories revealed with the static and lights, though they certainly do contribute. Just by walking around, exploring the houses, looking at the signs posted, the barricades set up, the abandoned cars still on the road, these all contribute to the environment and a deeper understanding of what occurred, still creating a further spin on the story the player is conjecturing.
In the end, no matter how diligently (or ‘un-diligently’) the player explores this town for an explanation, in the end, the interpretation is left up to the player. There is no clear “aha!” moment, no explicit reveal for many aspects of the story, whether it be a complete explanation of what event occurred in this town, to the implied actions and troubles the residents have, it can all be inferred differently. In the end, maybe the title really did give away the ending, albeit an unsatisfactory one. But then, that may have never been the point of this game. Perhaps it was to elucidate the complexities behind the interactions of others, to not always look at one side of a story, the biases one may have. Perhaps it was to show how its not always important what happened, but how it affected the people in the midst of it happening. Or, it could just be a demonstration that people have far more depth than one initially believes, and this event just helped in spurring on these multifaceted aspects of them. This game encourages to look beyond the event from the initial assessment and wonder if it is quite what it is. For if everyone truly went to the Rapture, then is it an entirely bad thing?
Fascinating! It seems like a beautiful game. I wonder why both this and Gone Home are slightly eerie--does the format of a walking simulator necessitate loneliness?