Waste. Of. Money.

User Rating: 1 | The Vanishing of Ethan Carter PC

Unreal engine. Meaningless dialogue. Walking sounds. The occasional sound of a bird. And floating words. Don't forget the floating words! There, I have encapsulated the game for you.

Be sure to list 3440x1440 as a resolution option, but make sure that, even when "full screen" is selected, you don't fill the entire screen. In this version of reality, full screen does not mean what it says.

Did I mention the bird sounds?

But hey, it looks nice, so I'm supposed to rate it a 10.

You will like this game if you enjoy staying in the same place and poring over every inch to find what they have placed for you to find. If you like to ... I don't know ... do things, you will hate this game.

I went awry by taking the apparently "open world" format of the game at face value. I was "supposed" to stay on the train tracks, so I could find the "clue" they had placed for me. I missed it (actually I missed more than one), and wandered on for about an hour, then was unable to proceed further in the game on account of not having solved a previous puzzle, because I had the audacity not to walk on the train tracks the first time around.

I had watched a video made by one of this game's designers, and he explicitly stated that it was the user's choice whether or not to solve each murder. Yet I found myself lost in the woods, bored out of my mind, nowhere to go, because I didn't find a little ridiculous "clue" they had placed for me (as I later found out, by watching still more walkthrough videos).

After more and more aimless wandering around, looking for ... something, I lost all patience and gave up on this waste of money.

I despise this entire mindset of game creation, so I rate this game harshly. Don't pretend to be open and free and refuse to "hand hold" (as the game proudly proclaims at its outset), but then place ridiculous demands and restraints on the player.

If you are in the majority who love this game, I know, it galls you that someone dares disagree with you, and cares approximately 0 what groupthink or professional reviewers say.