He may or may not be the protagonist, but he’s the source of most of the game’s intrigue. This ambience is punctuated occasionally by the narrator. Playing the original standalone release and not this year’s update, the visuals may have aged, but a respectful recreation of similar real-life landscapes has kept things surprisingly eye-catching.Įxcellent use of lighting sufficiently disguises the aging visuals… Wind spirals through glens, stranded tankers creak, and stalactites drip into subterranean pools with a remarkable faithfulness. You’ll push on because your curiosity compels you to.įrom there, you’ll roam the island’s reasonably linear pathways, cresting hills and nosing through caves, all the while accompanied by some incredible ambient audio. It’s a striking opening, not least because you’re given not a single instruction (this theme remains throughout your entire journey). Spin around, and you’ll see a lighthouse, cliffs, the beach, and not much else. As the unidentified protagonist, you’ll fade in on the slipway of a seemingly uninhabited Hebridean island, staring out into the vastness of the Atlantic. It’s spectacularly opaque, and this does wonders for it. To describe Dear Esther in detail would be…well, a severe dick move to prospective players. Dear Esther relies on your curiosity teasing you into that cave, or around the next corner…

Dear esther does it work