Dear Esther
- September 20, 2016
- The Chinese Room
- 3h median play time
A trip through a brilliantly conceived landscape that rewards attentive engagement with a moving story
Get on Xbox Games Store"Dear Esther" is a single-player Fantasy Simulation game with an interesting plot, sensational visuals, and ingenious music. The game takes place on a deserted island, where you explore as a lost man, with a book, written by a dying explorer, as your only guide. The game tells a powerful story of love, loss, guilt, and redemption, with a breathtaking soundtrack and a mysterious atmosphere, but it has limited replayability.
Mac OS
PC
Playstation 4
Playstation 5
Xbox One
Xbox Series X|S
PlayStation
Xbox
Reviews
- story4,083 mentions
- 27 % positive mentions
- 69 % neutral mentions
- 4 % negative mentions
- graphics1,220 mentions
- 63 % positive mentions
- 34 % neutral mentions
- 3 % negative mentions
- music1,100 mentions
- 59 % positive mentions
- 39 % neutral mentions
- 2 % negative mentions
- gameplay662 mentions
- 13 % positive mentions
- 75 % neutral mentions
- 12 % negative mentions
- atmosphere646 mentions
- 73 % positive mentions
- 25 % neutral mentions
- 2 % negative mentions
- emotional338 mentions
- 100 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 0 % negative mentions
- replayability148 mentions
- 8 % positive mentions
- 66 % neutral mentions
- 26 % negative mentions
- grinding26 mentions
- 0 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 100 % negative mentions
- optimization12 mentions
- 33 % positive mentions
- 50 % neutral mentions
- 17 % negative mentions
- funny12 mentions
- 100 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 0 % negative mentions
- stability4 mentions
- 0 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 100 % negative mentions
Critic Reviews
Dear Esther: Landmark Edition Review - To Tell A Tedious Tale
While Dear Esther is visually captivating, it amounts to a little more than a countryside slog in every other aspect.
40%Dear Esther: Landmark Edition Review
It's clear that the “walking simulator" genre has moved on since its birth child four years ago. The antiquated gameplay has been surpassed by the likes of Gone Home, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, and Firewatch, and the visuals are just as murky as a Scottish rainfall. There are far more and much better narrative-driven experiences to be had in 2016, and so Dear Esther: Landmark Edition feels like a bit of a relic in this day and age.
50%Dear Esther Landmark Edition Review
It’s a bit strange releasing Dear Esther on consoles now, because there are other – and arguably much better – titles in the genre available. Still, it’s nice to replay the game that sparked the uprising of the player-titled “walking simulator” genre.
60%
