Released in 2017 by Giant Sparrow, What Remains of Edith Finch is a walking simulator not dissimilar to Gone Home. Like Gone Home, What Remains of Edith Finch places the player in the role of a young woman exploring the cavernous family home from which she has long been absent, in this case the eponymous Edith. Edith has returned to her family’s ancestral estate to determine what her family’s legacy will be in her own life, and also why almost every member of her family has died a strange and untimely death. Unlike Gone Home, What Remains of Edith Finch proceeds not only through the examination of objects and setting to provide exposition on family drama and history, but also through various minigames which move the player from the perspective of Edith to that of each of her family members in the moments just before their deaths.
If this sounds macabre, it isn’t not. Players experience the deaths of ten or eleven different characters, several of them children, and the grief of these losses is palpable in the little memorials that serve as the entry points for each minigame, as well as the objects scattered throughout the house which evoke all the long-dead Finches the player becomes over the course of the game. But the minigames are not only death experiences. Each minigame also acts as a testament to the family member whose perspective the player occupies, introducing the character and their personality not only through a new narrative, but also new controls, interactions, and locations. In a way these death moments serve as each character’s apotheosis, the final definition of their lives, a conclusion but not exactly a foreclosure. Each death is depicted as one which belongs uniquely to the family member who lived it, developing almost intuitively from the personal trappings and obsessions of each person. The essence of each character remains in their associated minigame, waiting for the player to arrive, not to reveal secrets, per se, but to expand Edith’s knowledge of her family through an almost impossibly intimate method.
Players access each family member’s minigame through a memorial in the associated character’s bedroom (not the site of their death, even though most deaths also occurred within or around the house). These bedrooms are extremely detailed, introducing the player to each family member through their personal belongings as well as voiceover from Edith. This voiceover is not only seen, but appears as text within the game world, guiding the player’s attention and suggesting paths through the house. Each new character is presented in this way: first, their personal possessions and Edith’s thoughts on them, then a visual depiction in their memorial, and an accompanying piece of writing or other ephemera, which triggers the start of the minigame. In this way, the player is eased into each new role, forming ideas about each person which begin as broad, possibly stereotyped visions, and are narrowed into specificity by the experience of playing the minigame, of being that person in the very last moments of their life.
It is important to note that the minigames are often quite fun and exhilarating, even with their inevitable tragic conclusions. There is real thrill in becoming a young child who dreams of being a cat, an owl, and a shark, and being able to take up the role of each animal, sharing the child’s wonder at experiencing the world in a new way (it’s no surprise to me that this is the first minigame of the narrative, introducing the concept of experiencing new perspectives). There is sincere wonder in starring in a comic book come to life, creeping from panel to panel in pursuit of fearsome monsters. There is true delight in seeing through the eyes of a baby with an army of living toys at his command. The Finches are imaginative, idiosyncratic, and immediately lovable, their personal realities specific and special.
But of course, as I have already said, all these stories end the same way, with the death of the character, brought about by the player’s actions in playing the minigame. And yet the player is not punished or discouraged by this. At the end of each minigame, as the player returns to their position within Edith's perspective, the minigame’s subject is added to a family tree Edith is recording. This family tree functions similarly to other games’ more conventional methods of recording completed objectives. Rather than suggest the player is enacting violence or tormenting these characters by playing through their deaths, the game encourages the player to continue on and gather more experiences, both for their own interest and Edith’s. Each minigame is positioned as a source of connection, helping Edith rediscover her family history and her lost family members, and learn to envision them and love them in a deeper, more genuine way.
Though What Remains of Edith Finch is, to one degree or another, an art game, and thus any easy moral or conclusion is somewhat elusive, the game maintains an obvious, abiding faith in the power of stories as a tool for empathy, and the power of games to provide a unique version of this experience. While the game is limited in its overall interactivity with regards to changing the course of the narrative or picking up every asset and throwing it on the floor, the deployment of specific, unique interactions with the world and characters during the minigames makes What Remains of Edith Finch a powerful meditation on love, death, and family, one which is only possible through the medium of video games.
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