What Remains of Edith Finch (PS4, 2017)
In the Annapurna Interactive Deluxe Limited Edition, What Remains of Edith Finch is introduced with a word from its creator:
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Like I'll have heirs or bookshelves.
I played What Remains of Edith Finch almost two years ago and I didn't write it up at the time. I didn't feel like I had anything to say about it. Playing it again now, I felt like I might have something to say about it. The problem is, the Queen died about two hours after I finished it and sort of diverted my attention. I'll do my best, I suppose.
What Remains of Edith Finch is a walking simulator narrated by Edith, the last of the Finch family. Odin Finch moved the family home from Scandinavia to Orcas Island off Washington State. The house capsized and sank just before they reached land, so they built a new one and several generations of Finches lived in it over the years. Most of them died in mysterious circumstances leading to Dawn, Edith's mother, sealing all their rooms shut. Edith's narration comes back to the house several years after the two of them abandoned it and great grandma Edie at the same time.
I'm not sure if it says anything that while thinking about how to write this game up that I haven't spared any thought for justifying or explaining the term walking simulator. I don't mind it, as a concept or a descriptor. The term is appropriate, and the genre is as valid as any other. There's nothing remarkable deployed here. You walk around at a singular pace, there are occasional contextual moments of interaction with the environment, some to progress the story and some to just hear a bit of information. Sometimes the movement changes in the context of the story, sometimes the interactive parts do, but it's pretty consistent throughout.
The use of text to display what the narrator says is interesting. They act as subtitles, but while they appear on screen as they're spoken they're usually broken or brushed away by some movement of the player. We learn early on that Edith is documenting what she sees, says and thinks in a diary so this is an effective connection between the inner monologue we're exposed to and the environment which is provoking it. The overall tone of the Finch house and Edith's movements through it is a sort of still gentleness, so the words appearing as a semi-interactive object doesn't feel out of place.
The aspect of the game which had the most effect on me this time and made me write this was the house, so I should talk about that. On her walk up to it Edith says she always hated it growing up. I can see why. The whole game has the air of a surreal fairytale about it and the physical structure of the house is probably the best representation of this. As generations of Finches entered it new bits were built on top in increasingly impossible fashion. It looks like a child's drawing of a house from the outside, and as you progress through it it feels this way up close.
Inside the house is just... close. It's narrow, tight and every available space is lined with books. Most of them have individual titles, and some of them even have real titles which reflect the things you're seeing in the rooms. It all feels very profound and deliberate. If Edith didn't like growing up there in a weird house in the middle of nowhere, I think I would have. As I played and slowly walked the narrow corridors I genuinely had moments of childlike wonder, where I felt some vague half-memory of wanting to be or being in a home where I was lost, overwhelmed by the scale and sense of personal or familial history which to me was all-encompassing. The Finch family felt important, and their home did too.
The outside felt just as grandiose. The coastal setting made me think of a gothic version of The Great Gatsby, with the remnants of the former house visible in the water (red light rather than green light) and the surrounding bay grey and oppressive rather than majestic and hopeful. As you go through the individual stories of each Finch in and outside of the home you find the surroundings just as surreal and improbable as the interior. As a walking simulator the game really shines here, because each new thing you discover heightens to the importance of what you've already learned while still pushing you forward to add to it.
Technically, the game is alright. On a graphical level it's not ultra high quality, but the more reserved detail and colouring level works. It makes everything feel... I think cosy is the right word. Close. Familiar. This does pose some problems though, as there's very little colour in the game and the whole thing is actually quite dull. I had to turn the brightness up several notches to be able to see my way around and this ended up bleaching out some of the dimmer areas you explore. I know I said it's a grey, dingy sort of area but at times it feels like the game goes too far in one direction and ends up suffering for it.
This is most apparent when Edith's commentary takes us to the rooms of her dead family members. Many of these feature bold, bright colours, but that's irrelevant really in a technical context. In an impossible house, the stories of what happened to the Finches are equally unbelievable. I don't want to spoil what happens to any of them but one thing I do remember from my first time playing this game which differed now was how sad they all made me feel. Not because people died or other people grieved, but there seemed to be a real sense of loss and waste.
Some of the Finches have more tragic tales than others. Some have more sombre tales than others. Like Walter, who shut himself underground for thirty years. Lewis, who at 21 was so unfulfilled in his life he retreated entirely into his imagination. Gregory, who produced every parent's worst nightmare. You get small glimpses into the lives (and deaths) of these people that last minutes at most yet somehow you fell profoundly affected by what happened to them. The strength of the setting and the notion of both the house and the family as a distinct character here is prominent, as everything builds up and you realise how significant everything was in the history of this strange family.
The game is fairly short - two hours or so, I think - so I don't want to detail too much of the story here. I think this is the sort of game where your reaction to it depends on the life you've led, or even where you are in it when you play. I'm broadly the same as I was two years ago yet I found this more affecting second time around, having remembered very little of the details.
Everything about the game just feels important somehow. I don't think that happens very often.
