Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture
Developers: The Chinese Room, SCE Santa Monica Studio
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
Genre: Adventure
Platforms: Playstation 4
There are way too many maps in Shropshire County. Between two villages, a holiday camp and assorted wilderness, there isn’t more than a minute’s walk in any direction before you come up against a signposted survey of the area, emblazoned with that familiar little arrow of YOU ARE HERE. Maps are discarded on the floor, tacked up on the walls of houses – just in case a lifelong resident forgot how to get to the one shop, presumably – and just generally everywhere. For a local, it’s confusing; for a tourist to the region, however, these maps are invaluable. Without a HUD, an objective or even a compass, those little markers become a strange comfort amongst the winding village roads.
After all, it’s not like you can ask for directions. Everyone else has disappeared. Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture begins with a radio transmission from Dr Katherine Collins, the only survivor of what is enigmatically termed “the event”. A flu quarantine has locked down the whole valley, leaving the player to wander down into nearby Yaughton village and attempt to unravel the Mary Celeste mystery of where everyone has gone. The only life present – indeed, the only thing moving at all – are strange wisps of light darting and diving amongst the buildings, and they’re not talking.
On every level, the village and its surrounds are truly beautiful. Walking into buildings reveals darts games half-finished, ashtrays still smoking and heaped with cigarettes. Cars idle at the side of the road, doors left ajar, luggage strewn across the ground. Natural beauty abounds, the roads winding through towns, across farmland and nearly disappearing into forest paths. While not quite at the ‘no fake doors’ promised land, care and attention has been taken in realising every corner of the quaint little valley. The towns especially seem like places where people would actually live, which is no small feat. Even the most high-end games can break their own immersion by the player wandering into a room left totally empty and awkwardly huge. Rapture understands how to make a place looked lived-in and alive, even without the people to occupy it.
It’s a stunning visual of an abandoned world, one which grows no less powerful as the scope of the mystery grows and twists. Early on, radio transmissions warn that “the answers are in the light”: triggering those darting, glowing orbs proves this entirely true. Each light delivers snatches of conversations past, jumping back and forth in time from before the outbreak began right up to the eventual end. Through radios, phones and these peeks into the past, the plot is revealed, no direction given to the player. You must simply wander about, finding what you find as you go.
Whether or not this scattered, sedate approach to storytelling works is an entirely subjective matter. Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture takes everything at the same easy pace of the English countryside in which it is set. While this allows for plenty of time to enjoy the stunning environment, it comes at no small toll to the player’s patience. Shropshire is big and you walk slow. When you’re locked into the pace of a weekend vacationer, only missing one or two pieces of memory to complete that chapter’s story arc, frustration runs very high. Considering the actual end of the game is locked off until completing the final chapter’s arc – all others are optional – the all-important momentum and atmosphere grinds to a screeching halt just when it’s needed the most. In this way, pacing is really the only problem this game has. Asking for a player’s patience is one thing; stretching it to its limits is quite another.
Still, none of this really detracts from the singular experience Rapture provides. While the exact nature of the enigmatic lights is left rather vague, the picture as a whole is a vivid one. Shropshire is a place stuck in the past, for good or ill, inescapably bound in its own history and dramas. Older women primly comment on the impropriety of women scientists; village men express utter shock at friends bringing home American wives. It’s terribly English, through and through, right down to the quarantine being little more than a few metal barriers and sternly-worded signs across the exit roads.
Summary
Exploring this world, really, is the true joy of the game. If you’re not into storytelling or a slow burn, then Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture will provide nothing but frustration. If you want a game, rather than an interactive experience, look elsewhere. For a nice ramble and an intriguing mystery that rewards patience and exploration, you’ve come to the right village.
Everybody's Gone to the Rapture
Pros
- - Compelling, thoughtful story
- - Beautiful graphics
- - Immersive atmosphere
Cons
- - Slow pace can be a turnoff
- - No real gameplay
