The Vanishing of Ethan Carter review for PS4

Platform: PS4
Also On: PC
Publisher: The Astronauts
Developer: The Astronauts
Medium: Digital
Players: 1
Online: No
ESRB: M

The very first thing you see in The Vanishing of Ethan Carter is a disclaimer: โ€œThis game is a narrative experience which does not hold your hand.โ€

It doesnโ€™t take long for the game to put those words into action. Moments later, you find yourself emerging from a dark train tunnel in the middle of the woods. Thereโ€™s no guidance as to where you should go next, nor any indication of what you can or are supposed to do. Youโ€™re just there, trying to solve a mystery, and itโ€™s up to you to decide where to go next.

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In other words, if youโ€™re the kind of person who wants a little bit of direction in your games, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter probably isnโ€™t for you. That cold open sets the tone for the entire game, since youโ€™ll be expected to piece everything together on your own, with no help or direction at any point in time. Thereโ€™s the odd button prompt, of course, but those are so few and far between that they feel like the barest nod the gameโ€™s developers could possibly make towards the fact that they have, in fact, created an interactive experience rather than a really pretty animated movie.

Because of that, the only way to figure out what youโ€™re doing is to move slowly and deliberately, keeping your eyes open for anything in the way of clues. Thereโ€™s no rushing here; The Astronauts really seem to want you to experience The Vanishing of Ethan Carter as an immersive narrative rather than as a bunch of puzzles to be solved.

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Itโ€™s not hard to see why they wanted people to inhabit the gameโ€™s world, though: itโ€™s incredibly gorgeous. The first time my wife saw me playing The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, she stopped what she was doing just to comment on the fact she couldnโ€™t believe a video game looked so lifelike. Admittedly, the game is probably helped immeasurably in this respect by the fact it seldom shows people. Itโ€™s set in an abandoned village in rural Pennsylvania, which means that all it has to do is show environments; when it does pause to advance the narrative via flashback, thereโ€™s a definite uncanny valley thing going on.

Still, when the game does such a fantastic job of creating a creepy atmosphere, complaining about the lack of people seems like itโ€™s missing the point. Like a great horror movie, everything in The Vanishing of Ethan Carter is there to leave you feeling unsettled and unsure of whatโ€™s going on. Considering it nails that feeling and sustains it throughout, Iโ€™d say that counts as a pretty substantial success.

Grade: A-
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