Walking simulators are something I really enjoy as they can focus mostly on the story, characters, and atmosphere. Sadly, it's also a big gamble as sometimes the story can be great, but the gameplay is awful or the story is awesome, but the ending sucks and pretty much makes the entire experience not worthwhile. The Chinese Room is notorious for its walking simulators, being almost exactly that, and this game is a spiritual successor to Dear Esther which looked great but was forgettable.
The game puts you in a small rural British town of Shropshire where there doesn't seem to be anyone around. All you know is to follow a ball of light floating around and it guides you around the town to activate cut scenes of the main characters talking about what happened at that moment. You will see the aftermath such as a wrecked car, a turned-over box, bloody rags, etc. There are no actual character models as they are just whisps of light in the shape of people acting things out on screen. This can make the game aggravating to play and pay attention to. A game with literally zero gameplay outside of an action button, and doesn't have any characters on screen better be damn good right?
As you walk around and follow the ball of light you will sometimes hear a numbers station playing on a radio or a telephone ring. These are extra tidbits of stories you can listen to. Each part of the town focuses on a specific character, but sadly I was often lost as to who was what as there were no faces to put to any of the voices. Once you see a cutscene play out your ball of light will stop and wait, sometimes. There were quite a few glitches in the game in which the ball of light would get stuck in the ground, not continue on, or just disappear somewhere never to be found. I had to restart the game to get the ball back on track.
Major cutscenes that actually advance the story are triggered by grabbing a ball of light and moving it left and right until it explodes. This was originally an excuse to use the then-new DualShock 4 touchpad. Here it's just a mouse drag and feels pointless. You know you are done with an area when you get a ball of exploding light that takes a few seconds to trigger. After this cutscene, the area goes dark and you follow a trail of lights on the ground to the next area. This is all there is to the game. It's pretty to look at, even today. The game uses CryEngine so it looks awesome and holds up well, but it's still forgettable. There's nothing memorable about a realistic-looking generic old English rural town.
I did eventually get into the story towards the end. However, the game just ends on a pretentious note and I felt deflated and annoyed. I really hate endings like this. This was four hours I will get back and I won't take anything away from this game at all. No interesting gameplay, no memorable visuals, and no exciting story. The voice acting is great, but that's about it.
Sadly, Everybody's Gone to the Rapture is a game I've avoided for a decade and there's a reason for that. I knew that this game would be very forgettable and a waste of time. I enjoyed the idea of this strange apocalyptic infection that's passed around through phone and radio waves, but there's no pay-off in the end. That also doesn't take into account the aggravatingly slow walking pace that most people won't be able to put up with. Even if it was two times faster it would be more tolerable. It