A video game review of The Chinese Room's newest IP, Everybody's Gone to the Rapture.
Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture is meticulous with its storytelling.
It takes time and patience to weed through what developer, The Chinese Room and SCE Santa Monica Studio, is trying to portray.
And what it does convey in the end is an eerie, haunting — yet sluggish — tale of the end of the world.
Story
Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture is difficult to digest.
Players control Dr. Katherine Collins as she explores the fictional countryside of Yaughton in Shropshire, England and pieces together the events prior to “The Rapture” via floating light holograms littered throughout the world.
In an ambiguous way, Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture encapsulates the players in a beautifully deserted English village with minimalism. There are no people. No birds. No children. No movement. But, it works.
Collins’ tale has its fair share of meaningful, effective moments as you see the final moments of people’s lives. But The Chinese Room attempts to go further. Instead of answering how or why this doomsday happened, they tie together neatly-woven introspection.
{{tncms-asset app="editorial" id="505e2cdc-de1a-11e4-b531-27c9b43cd30e"}}
Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture illuminates themes of deception, the fragility of trust and the repercussions of vindication. Yet with such powerful themes, I couldn’t help but anticipate some sort of lively interaction during the three-to-four hour story.
Game narratives are usually driven by human versus human conflicts, but Everybody’s Gone to Rapture only flirts with this idea. As gamers traverse through the non-chronological story, Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture tips its toes in multiple venues of storytelling.
Human versus nature. Human versus human. Human versus society. All three are shown throughout.
Even with powerful acting and crisp writing, however, what The Chinese Room fails to do with its storytelling is actually make it coherent and lasting.
With the gameplay so sluggish, I became exhausted towards the end. It’s not that the story is awful, but Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture plays more like a pretty audiobook and less like an interactive narrative.
Gameplay
Unhurried is an understatement when giving this game an adjective.
Now, I enjoy stories that take its time to develop, but Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture’s might as well be a walking simulator in terms of gameplay.
You essentially do nothing. You can walk, jog and press the 'X' button to interact with certain doors, radios and phones.
Collins will follow light holograms around Yaughton and if it wasn’t for the game’s strong writing and dialogue, this would be a total snooze fest.
Even toward the end, when my interest in the climax peaked, I had to stop and put the controller down because the walking became so tedious. Sure, the graphics are beautiful and the English landscape is breathtaking at times, but The Chinese Room could’ve saved itself some time and just written a book.
At 1080p, the game does suffer from some frame rate issues when the player comes close to trees and branches. Not that it hinders the overall experience, just another example that The Chinese Room’s resources could’ve gone elsewhere.
Final Verdict
Its hard to hate Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture. It’s a good story with solid themes and acting, but to consider this a part of video game lore is extremely audacious.
Score: 2.5/5
@Lukeoroark
lr514812@ohio.edu
