Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture
Sorry, BioShock fans, it’s not that Rapture…
WELCOME TO YAUGHTON, population: you. This exploration game from the makers of DearEsther was a hit on PlayStation 4 last year, and we feared it would never make its way to our greener-grassed side of the fence, thanks to funding and co-development from Sony. But one sudden announcement later, and here we are.
Yaughton is a village in England, blessed with bucolic charm, a splendid observatory, and a population obsessed with stargazing, as well as the usual concerns of country folk, such as extramarital affairs and escaping a flu epidemic. The year is 1984, it’s apparently June, and just after 6am something mysterious happens that causes everyone to vanish. You’re still there, though, along with some weird floating balls. You may well be a weird floating ball yourself, as you have no visible legs (although you make audible footsteps), and only appear to be as tall as a stalk of wheat.
The balls provide the direction you need to progress. Follow a golden will-o’the-wisp, and ghostly vignettes play out, providing clues to what happened, along with the non-linear stories of the locals, with a scientist from the observatory as a major character throughout. You never quite know when they’ll occur, although visual distortion acts as a clue, and while some start of their own accord, others must be tuned into, using the mouse or right analog stick. The latter type are especially valuable, as their conclusions are the only time the game will save—an annoying hangover from the PlayStation roots.
The scenes are well written and perfectly voice-acted, and are supplemented by further “audio logs” provided by radios and ringing phones. But there’s another star that rises higher and shines more brightly— the soundtrack. By turns orchestral and choral, it’s already won a BAFTA.
The game’s look also deserves praise. Reminiscent of The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, the atmospheric forests, trickling water, fluttering insects, swaying flowers, and thatched cottages give a sense of an English village in much the same way Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day conjures up an English country house. At 1080p and maximum settings, we got a little chug out of a GTX 970, but nothing too offensive.
In a game that’s so detailed, the finer points matter, and things such as computers plugged into neither screens nor the wall, the gas station with very modern grades of fuel on sale, or the oddly large soccer balls and teacups, can jerk you out of the fiction. This is a shame, as it’s a game that deserves to be wallowed in, and—like the starlight so many of its characters like to capture— thoroughly absorbed. Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture
RAPTUROUS Lovely to look at; amazing soundtrack; excellent voice-acting.
SCABROUS Moves pretty slowly; save system is annoying.
RECOMMENDED SPECS 3.1GHz Intel Core i7-4770S or 3.5GHz AMD FX-8320; 8GB RAM, Nvidia GeForce GTX 770 or AMD Radeon HD 7970.
$19.99, www.thechineseroom.co.uk, ESRB: M