Play as Edith Finch as you go back to your family home and discover the mystery around your family tragic history and lives through their eyes in this beautiful, award winning, story driven first person adventure.
General Gameplay
What Remains of Edith Finch is a story driven tale about Edith going back home to discover the stories of her family and their tragic lives. The story is told from their perspective and their lives and what led to their end. The game is all about walking, exploring the world around you and hearing and experiencing the story of the Finch family. The Game Visuals in What Remains of Edith Finch are well done. The attention to detail from the stories, backgrounds, characters, and all other visual aspects are done in great detail and easy to see on the screen. The colors in the game are bright and very vivid in motion, and as each story is told in a different visual setting, all the game visuals are well done. As the game deals with different settings there are times you are being told a story from the first-person perspective and that is well done with the way you can explore the world that you are in. The game does not support a colorblind mode; however, it is not needed as the colors are quite easy to always see on the screen. In our play testing, we did not see anything that would be offensive to gamers ages 13 and up (as the game deals with death and demise of the characters there are some depressing moments and death of the characters in the game, we will cover more in detail in our Family Friendly section) Audio in What Remains of Edith Finch is done through the narrative from the main character as well as the characters in the stories that you see unfold. The background music, sound effects and other audio in the game is well done and one of the best narratives that we have heard in a long while. The game is a beautiful blend of both voice acting, background music, and other sounds that help create the story that is being told. What Remains of Edith Finch is presented in both 5.1 surround sound as well 2.0 stereo sound, but we recommend playing the game with a gaming headset to best enjoy the game and story. In our play testing, outside of language and some dialog there was nothing offensive to anyone gaming over the age of 13 and older. Controls in What Remains of Edith Finch are more like a point and click style of game. You walk around the environment, experience the story being told and go with the motions. The left thumb stick controls the character, and the right one is for looking around. The buttons control the action on the screen as the story unfolds. There is no tutorial for the controls, but for those that have played first person games, you will fit right into the game without any trouble. The game is extremely simple to control and amazingly easy to pick up and play without any trouble. As the game is available both on the PC and console, using either a standard keyboard and mouse setup or the standard controller is fine for the game and no special controller is needed for the game. In our play testing, we did not have any issues with the gameplay or command inputs.
“What Remains of Edith Finch is one of those games that comes along and makes you want to play it over and over again. With a beautiful, but tragic story, intelligent ways of telling the story of each character, this is a game that you must experience for yourself.”
Family Friendly
When we first saw this game back in 2017, most of us in the office did not want to invest time into a “walking simulator” and another story telling game where you just read and listen, now 4 years later, we are glad that we took the time to download this from the Xbox Game Pass and experience what we feel is one of the best story driven games that we have playing in a long time. Yes, there are some fantastic story driven games out there and we can go on and on about why they are great and deserve to be on a “Top 10 List” but there are so many factors that makes What Remains of Edith Finch such a great game to play and we will go over these. First off, the story. When you first start the game, it is a little tutorial about how to move around and what buttons do what, where the game shines are when Edith explore the home and rooms where the story starts to grow to what happened to the family that at one point lived in the home. The stories are unique and told with great voice acting that brings the story to life. Each story of the family members and how you approach them are unique and fresh and that is what keeps the game great to continue to play. One moment you are a soaring in the skies, the next trying to survive a serial killer and so one. The stories within itself is entertaining and do a fantastic job of showing how a story driven game can be entertaining, engaging and done right. If anything, this game reminded us of another story story driven game that was done well, Gone Home. Games like this is why being a gamer is fun. Now as the game deals with death, there are points of the game where it shows what each family member was going through, from separation, depression, and other topics, some that may be a little too much for some gamers, but keep in mind you are seeing how these family members dealt with their problems and the outcomes of their personal struggles. So, there will be topics that for some gamers that may be a little touchy, so for parents and gamers keep this in mind when playing the game, but do not let this detour from playing the game. What makes this a fantastic story is that once you play the game, you are invested into the characters and what is going on with them, never was there a dull moment in the game or any of the stories in the game and the game does a fantastic story keeping you vested into the story. What Remains of Edith Finch is a fantastic game for those that are looking for a great story driven game that is not to long or short but the right amount of time to invest into a story driven game (around 5-6 hours) and all the gameplay is fresh from start to the end. Normally we talk about something that we saw negative about the game, but in this case, there was nothing outside of a directory commentary that we wished that were added so we had more insight to the stories and inspiration to each one of them. In our special needs game testing, we did not find any issues with the game visuals, audio or even the controls, if anything the game is very special needs gaming friendly.
Closing
What Remains of Edith Finch is a beautiful but tragic story of a family and life. The narration and unique way of each story is unfolded is a pure joy to see in and the vivid storytelling is just worth the play through. A must have game for your digital library.
NOTE: For those that subscribe to the Xbox Game Pass, at the time of writing this review the game is available to download for free to play.
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