Contents:
The Intro
Title: What Remains of Edith Finch
Release year: 2017
Developed by: Giant Sparrow
Genre: Walking simulator
Platform replayed on: PC
Lasting.
I can’t remember how I acquired What Remains of Edith Finch. I can’t remember why I even wanted to play this game.
What I will always remember is the lasting impact this short, walking simulator experience has had on me.
Why would the story of Edith Finch, a 17-year-old girl returning to her family home for the first time in seven years, have such an impact on me as a gamer?
That is exactly what I intend to find out.
The Game
I debated how to classify What Remains of Edith Finch. I thought about calling it a walking simulator/adventure game. But then I dropped the adventure game label, as I feel it is used as a catch-all term for story-driven games that are a bit hard to classify. Like this one.
What Remains of Edith Finch takes you through a linear story, so to me it’s more interactive fiction; the narrative drives this, and the gameplay elements are secondary.
But I don’t want to get too stuck into classifications here. For this game, it’s only useful to know as an indicator of whether or not you might like to try it. If you’re not into walking simulators or games with limited meaningful interaction, it won’t be for you.
I surprised myself with this game, as I’m not a huge walking simulator fan. Games that I’d classify as such that I’d played prior to playing What Remains of Edith Finch are The Stanley Parable (2013) and The Vanishing of Ethan Carter (2014). Both were enjoyable experiences for me, but did not have as strong a lasting impact. However, the fact I’d played those two other games is a reason I can point to as leading me towards playing What Remains of Edith Finch. That, or possibly I saw it recommended online.
However What Remains of Edith Finch found me, it was definitely fortuitous.
You join 17-year-old Edith Finch as she sits aboard a ferry, taking her to Orcas Island (off the coast of Washington state), where her family home sits. She has not been back for seven years.
What unfolds is Edith exploring her house in first-person mode, and uncovering the secrets of her family tree.
Most of the house had been locked away, so growing up, Edith never knew much about her family history. Edith is part of the fourth generation of the Finch Family to have lived in this house.
Upon arrival, she starts uncovering the hidden entrances to each family member’s bedroom, and then the secrets start revealing themselves.
Edith finds that upon entering these bedrooms, they have all been preserved; left the same as the day they were last occupied. They also have shrines left to their previous owners.
You see, the Finch Family has a curse. They have all died, all under mysterious and random circumstances, and Edith is the last remaining member alive.
This becomes Edith’s journey. She is trying to learn about her family’s history with this death curse, and more importantly, whether it will be coming for her as well. Each room or area of the house Edith explores becomes a vignette of the death of each member of her family, spanning four generations over more than a hundred years.
Each vignette is played out in unique ways, with no two being the same. Sometimes you have control during these, and other times it’s more passive.
It can be quite a simple experience, like using a stereoscope (View-Master):
To quite a complex, interactive experience, like controlling Edith’s brother as he simultaneously works his mundane day job (using the right analog stick on a controller), and lives in his fantasy world (using the left analog stick).
Edith narrates this journey through the Finch House, with her words appearing on-screen like subtitles. But these subtitles are part of the game. At times you interact with them, like in one scene where you are flying a kite.
At other times, the subtitles interact with the scene itself. For example, there is a time they trail off, leading you in the direction you must go.
Sometimes, the subtitles are even part of the scene. For example, one vignette is a comic book reading.
The words are important—you’re being told a story after all. They become one with the house, and as such, it’s impossible to separate the stories from the house. Only by exploring and uncovering the secrets of the house can Edith learn about her family and their tragic deaths.
And with that, it’s now time to see if I can discover what it is about What Remains of Edith Finch that has had such an impact on me.
The Replay
A quick note to say that there will be spoilers in this section.
What Remains of Edith Finch begins with you joining Edith as she sits on a ferry, on her way to the island where her family home sits. It’s here she looks at her diary for the first time. Edith has started writing this diary for someone, initially apologising to the reader that not a lot of what will follow is going to make a lot of sense.
It doesn’t take long until Edith mentions the house. As becomes evident only as you play What Remains of Edith Finch, the house is central to the story; it’s an entity in its own right.
You begin walking to the house, which provides the opportunity to set the scene with Edith narrating some of the background. It’s an ominous beginning. You learn that Edith hasn’t been back to the house since her brother’s funeral seven years ago, and also that the house has been abandoned since then. Edith’s mother had also left Edith a key in her will, but not telling her what it unlocked.
Edith has inherited this house (being the last remaining Finch), but never intended to return. It’s only now that she has questions about her family, does she turn to the house for answers.
I enjoy replaying the approach to the house. I know the mysteries and secrets it holds, and even though I know them now, I still have a feeling of anticipation before entering. You can feel the apprehension Edith is experiencing as she approaches, as she never wanted to return, and states that the house always made her uncomfortable—she was scared of the house.
What Remains of Edith Finch quickly takes on a superstitious feel, with Edith sensing that the house has been waiting for her.
If you’d like a quick look at What Remains of Edith Finch in action, here are the first six minutes, showing Edith approaching the house:
As you enter the house with Edith, you find a house very much left in a state of abandonment. Edith feels like she’s home, but with no family—only memories of one.
I still have a sense of wonder coming into the house. There’s a lot to explore, and more questions than answers at this stage. You learn that after Edith’s brother disappeared, her mother sealed the bedrooms. However, Edith’s great-grandmother Edie drilled peepholes in retaliation. Reflecting on this, there’s this conflict between Edith’s mother and Edie: her mother wants to protect Edith, while Edie doesn’t want to hide anything from Edith. There’s this acceptance from Edie of the death curse, where Edith’s mother perhaps wants to pretend it’s not there and not worry Edith. It’s only at the time of her own death, does she provide Edith with the mysterious key, almost inviting her back to the house.
The story is very quickly established. Now it’s time to investigate the death curse.
One room remained unsealed, and this is where Edith discovers her first secret passage.
Edith ends up in her great aunt Molly’s room. She lived from 1937 to 1947, and reading her diary of her last night, she knew she was going to die. It’s an unusual experience, as you become Molly after she’s been locked in her room without having dinner on that fateful night. She eats what she can find in her room: old gerbil food, toothpaste, and ornamental berries. She then hallucinates, and she becomes a cat hunting a bird, an eagle hunting rabbits, a shark hunting a seal, and finally a kraken-type sea monster hunting sailors on a boat.
It’s an incredibly strange tale, mixing childhood imagination with a sense of dread.
As Edith finishes one exploration of a bedroom shrine, she continues finding pathways and passages around the house to find entrances to other rooms. As mentioned, each vignette plays out differently from a gameplay perspective.
As you explore, you pick up on the history of the house, particularly in Edie’s room.
By this stage, it’s clear there’s something strange going on with the mysterious deaths. You go from one strange story to the next. I started thinking about the inevitability of it all. I started thinking about the sadness of it all.
The stories about the children are particularly touching. There are sad reminders around the house that highlight these deaths. For example, there’s a height chart for twins on the back of a door, where one stops, and the other continues.
The most tragic tale was the story of Edith’s infant uncle Gregory drowning in a bathtub before his second birthday.
As with other child deaths, there is this contrast of childhood wonder and happiness with impending tragedy. You control Gregory as he plays with toys in the bathtub, like you controlled Molly as she hunted imaginary prey, and like with Calvin as he swings.
As we’ve already seen, the uniqueness of the gameplay during each vignette is incredible. On my first playthrough, I never knew what to expect next; and on subsequent playthroughs, I still enjoy each experience. It’s not the actual gameplay, but the variation, the visuals, and the narration. All of these together make such a memorable experience.
There’s also a section walking through the family graveyard, just outside the house.
The graveyard experience reinforces that this story is all about death, and also the different perspectives between Edith’s mother and Edie. Further, the old house out in the ocean is always visible, a constant reminder of the curse.
As Edith climbs higher in the house, she moves into her own immediate family’s stories. You can experience the memories of Edith’s childhood. Again, there’s this sadness that surrounds the exploration, as you know this apparent happiness didn’t last.
Edith’s brother Milton disappeared when she was four, and was never found. There are missing posters scattered all around the house. Milton’s disappearance was the catalyst for Edith’s mother sealing the bedrooms in the house; she was afraid of what Milton may have discovered in the house.
Edith’s other brother Lewis, as a recovering addict, becomes more and more detached from the real world. He creates his own fantasy world, and this takes over and becomes his new reality. As mentioned earlier, his tale is told as you simultaneously perform his mundane job deheading fish and live in his fantasy world.
This sequence is fantastically done. The narration is done by Lewis’ psychiatrist, as Edith is reading her letter to Edith’s mother. She’s explaining what happened up to the point where Lewis took his own life.
As you play this out, the fantasy world gradually takes over more and more of the screen, symbolising his losing touch with reality.
Lewis’ death was the breaking point for Edith’s mother, deciding she was leaving the house with Edie and Edith.
We finally get to Edith’s story. During this playthrough of What Remains of Edith Finch, I’ve felt the opposition between Edie and Edith’s mother—the former understands and accepts; the latter tries to protect and escape. And I see Edith in the middle of these two extremes. Near the end, she says she wanted to stay, but understands why they left.
Despite there being so much death in the family, as I drew nearer to the end of this story once again, I came to a realisation: there was a constant happiness throughout. The house is full of good memories of lives lived, be they short or long. This contrasts with the ending, where the three remaining Finches end the history of the house in conflict. Edie refuses to leave the house, and Edith and her mother depart without her.
Soon, Edith is the last Finch alive.
I will leave it there, not spoiling the ending sequence for those that haven’t played it. Ultimately, Edith ends her diary with a message of hope.
The Verdict
As I started this replay, I wanted to discover why What Remains of Edith Finch has had such an impact on me as a gamer. Did I achieve this?
Not quite. Like the mystery of the death curse and the Finch House, perhaps my connection with this game will remain a mystery too.
Like your favourite movies or novels, each time you watch or read them, you might notice something you never noticed before. I feel a bit like that with this, my third playthrough of the game.
I picked up on more of the conflict between Edie and Edith’s mother, and seeing Edith in the middle of this. I also began to interpret the house as its own entity. Or more accurately perhaps, a projected entity by members of the Finch family. It’s just a house, right? But the lives and deaths of the Finches become intertwined with the house—meaning the memories are locked (literally and figuratively) within it.
But is this search for a deeper understanding what draws me in? I know that playing What Remains of Edith Finch for the third time, I still couldn’t put it down until I had finished it. It’s an idea I hadn’t considered until now, that I keep getting pulled back in to discover more and more with each play.
The obvious attractions are in the visuals and the gameplay. The house is incredibly detailed, and looks stunning inside and out. It’s a joy to explore and uncover the secret passages. And the gameplay is varied and imaginative, as you’ve seen from some of the images above.
I’m also attracted to the story. It’s a sad, mysterious tale. It’s not normal. It’s not a grand sweeping adventure story, or a colossal good versus evil struggle. It’s a story about a seemingly normal family, cursed with endless tragedy.
Early on, you know where this is heading, but you want to know how it gets there. This story will not have a happy ending. Edith was not discovering anything other than confirmation that she was going to die.
I think there was a sense of morbid curiosity the first time I played this. Once you know each vignette is going to end in death (and often through tragic accidents), you become very curious to see how it’s going to happen each time.
After completing What Remains of Edith Finch, I considered how we view short films and short stories: as forms of art. Viewing this game as a combination of the two forms of media, I cannot help but see this as anything but art. I’ve never been a strong proponent of games as art, only as I have never really given it much thought. But this game makes me consider this point of view more than any other game I’ve played.
I can only conclude then, that it is a combination of the above which made, and continues to make, this game so appealing to me.
But I don’t think I quite completed my journey of discovery this time around. Perhaps future playthroughs will help. I mentioned above that it may in fact remain a mystery to me…
…locked away in that house.
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