THE GREAT ESCAPE
In my dreams, I often return to places from my past. Childhood homes, or the houses of relatives I visited frequently when I was young. The feeling is familiar and comforting, yet something is always off. Rooms have been rearranged. New spaces have appeared where none should exist. Sometimes I discover hidden areas behind panels I never knew were doors. The place has changed. It has expanded. Still, the presence of my family gives the dream a sense of warmth. Everyone is alive. Everyone is happy. It feels like coming home.
What Remains of Edith Finch, the second game from Giant Sparrow, plays like such a dream—except this time, it is not my home. You control Edith Finch, a young woman returning to her family house after many years away. The house, located in Washington State, dates back to the late nineteenth century, when Edith’s great-grandmother and namesake, Edie Finch, arrived from Norway with her parents. A lover of stories, Edie filled the home with books, and over generations the house grew as more family members came and went.
Your purpose is to uncover the truth behind Edith’s troubled lineage, and to understand why—out of such a large family—she alone remains. Why does only a single child in each generation survive? Is the family cursed, or is it all coincidence? You explore the house room by room in first person, uncovering the lives and deaths of ancestors and distant relatives. Edith narrates the journey herself, her inner thoughts visualized as text seamlessly integrated into the environment.
The answers are buried beneath layers of family myths and retellings, each varying wildly in tone and reliability. Truth and fiction blur together, and the narrator herself cannot always be trusted. Still, most stories end with unmistakable implications. Edith once had two older brothers: one died at the age of twenty-two, the other vanished without a trace somewhere on the property.
It is a painfully beautiful game—concise, deliberate, and exquisitely directed, with audio design that elevates every quiet moment. The Finch house stands isolated on an island reachable only by ferry, perched on a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Realistically, it should not exist. It looks like the product of a dreamer with no regard for structural integrity.
Built upon the foundation of an ordinary home, it stretches skyward without balance or restraint, as if rooms were added by someone playing Tetris very badly. It should have collapsed long ago, yet it remains standing. One could argue that the house itself is a literal family tree, with each room representing a family member. The higher you climb, the closer you come to the present.
What Remains of Edith Finch is a masterclass in economical storytelling. Every step of the investigation feels distinct. Nothing is repeated. Each room is carefully staged, every object placed with intention to communicate who lived there and how. The narration arrives in short, hypnotic fragments, allowing meaning to seep in almost by osmosis. Each story is conveyed through a bespoke gameplay vignette—so mechanically simple that it never distracts from the narrative.
In one segment, you ride a swing by gently rocking the analog sticks. Another unfolds as a flipbook animation. A more elaborate chapter plays out like a Halloween-themed slasher FPS. Throughout, the narration provides just enough context to frame the experience, leaving the emotional interpretation to the player. And each vignette ends the same way: with the death of that family member.
It is here that the game’s central theme reveals itself. What begins as a mystery slowly transforms into a meditation on escapism, grief, and the fragile boundary between dreams and reality. What happens when our dreams grow larger than life? What remains when they can no longer shield us from the world?
Escapism versus reality is one of my favorite themes, defined by its inherent conflict. This is the first time I have encountered it so poignantly explored in a video game—a medium traditionally built to sustain fantasy rather than interrogate it. The theme is rare even in film, though it has appeared in works such as The Matrix, and more devastatingly in The Woman in the Dunes, a personal favorite that left me utterly shaken.
The same is true here. I am struck by Giant Sparrow’s compassion and insight into the existential struggles of both ordinary people and those who seem tantalizingly close to fulfilling their dreams. Through a rich and varied cast, the game balances joy and tragedy with remarkable tonal precision. It explores life’s hardships and fleeting happiness through storytelling that appears simple on the surface, yet reveals immense depth.
What Remains of Edith Finch is a brief journey that begins strong and only grows more powerful with each passing minute. Like the house itself, it assembles small, intimate details into something impossibly monumental. While it owes a clear debt to trailblazing narrative games like Gone Home, it ultimately stands above its peers as something wholly its own. It took only a few hours to complete—but it is an experience I will carry with me for the rest of my life.
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