The Therapist Gamer

Everybody's Gone to the Rapture is in the genre colloquially referred to as a "walking simulator," which means the bulk of the gameplay involves exploring an area without much interaction with enemies or friendlies.  In this game you wander an English country town where everybody appears to have left.  As you travel around you begin to learn the truth about what happened.

 

The game itself is beautiful.  Not only are the graphics impressive but the art direction is superb as well; if I had access to these graphics I wouldn't be able to make something anywhere near this visually engaging.  The game creators are very competent at creative environments but may have struggled to design humans that would visually match the fidelity of the rest of the game.  You stumble across scenes with characters in them, but the people are represented by light organized into human-like shapes.  These appear to be memories stuck in the environment and they often provide some piece of information that drives the story forward.

 

I personally found the game engaging (for the most part) and thought the story was pretty good, but I think a lot of people will find the game fairly boring.  The game doesn't really direct you in any way, and if you weren't invested in playing the game then the game doesn't do much to change that.  I think the overall story is interesting, but I think many players will not be engaged enough to see it through.

 

Another issue with the game is the walking speed.  I'm not sure I've ever had an issue with this in any other game, but you just move too slow in Everybody's Gone to the Rapture.  The problem is that it's too realistic.  You'll notice that in most games you either run or jog by moving the analogue stick, and I suspect that a lot of games would feel weird if you were to walk at a realistic pace - even if it makes sense for the game environment.  In this game you move as fast as you would in real life, but honestly I think it's just too slow for a game.  Look out your window and imagine walking down the street, only there is nobody around.  Imagine you get two or three minutes down the street and remember you forgot something and need to walk back before setting out again.  It's just tedious.  Granted, the game is beautiful to look at while you're walking, but holy cow is it tedious to roam an open field walking at two miles an hour.  The game was actually patched to allow faster walking outdoors, but this is the version I played and can confirm that it is still extremely slow.  I don't think this issue ruins the game by any means, but if you didn't know about it ahead of time it would likely sour your experience.

 

The game is simply so pretty that I think it's worth a try.  You can decide after half an hour if it's your type of game, and if it is I think you'll really like it.