Adventure games have been given a nice face lift in the current gaming scene. While some refer to these games as “walking simulators,” most of these games offer a unique setting that tells a compelling story that makes the player want to push through to the end. The Vanishing of Ethan Carter is a great addition to the genre, despite a story that falls flat at the end.
The first thing you’ll notice about The Vanishing of Ethan Carter is how gorgeous the game looks. The Astronauts, the development team behind the game, put a lot of work into creating an atmospheric setting. They even went all the way into taking super high-res photos in forests to create the textures in the game. The Vanishing of Ethan Carter is undoubtedly one of the best looking games I have experienced.
The game never specifies where you’re adventure is set, but it seems to be in an Appalachian mining town. You play as Paul Prospero, a famous private detective. A young boy named Ethan Carter has been writing Prospero for some time now, and as Carter continues to write to Prospero, the detective noticed that his letters became increasingly weird over time. Prospero heads to Carter’s hometown to investigate Carter’s claims, and ultimately find the boy.
You quickly learn that Prospero has a supernatural power that isn’t common with detectives. After unveiling all the clues of a crime scene and putting the clues back in their original position, Prospero has the ability to view the past and see the crime take place.
Piecing these crime scenes together make up a majority of the campaign, which will last between four to six hours, depending on how quickly you want to run through the game. After placing all the objects in the crime scene in their original position, you’ll have to put each event that happened in the crime in chronological order. These can be a bit confusing at times, but there is no fail state, so you can just use trial and error to put each crime scene in order.
The Vanishing of Ethan Carter‘s biggest weakness is the story. It isn’t necessarily a bad story, it just deviates greatly from what was set up early in the game. Like many stories, it seems like The Astronauts had a great idea for a story, but couldn’t figure out how to end it.
I would still recommend people play through the game. The Vanishing of Ethan Carter should be played just to experience the visuals and the atmosphere the game creates. While the story falls flat towards the end, it will keep you intrigued for a majority of the time.
Score: 8/10
The Vanishing of Ethan Carter was developed and published by The Astronauts for PC on September 25th. A retail copy of the PC version was provided to us by The Astronauts for reviewing purposes.
