#Games like gone home mod

Many of Dear Esther‘s defining features arose through chasing that goal with the basic tools The Chinese Room had available. “Those are really amazing, powerful moments in games, when it just falls away, and you go, ‘Okay, I’m here.'”

“The initial starting point for it was this idea of going ‘Can you take those bits where the kind call-to-action falls away, so you’re just left with your thoughts and your feelings?’ Pinchbeck says. Working on the game as a research project at the University of Portsmouth in the mid-2000s, Pinchbeck wanted to capture the quiet, contemplative moments that he’d experienced in other first-person game like Half-Life 2 and S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Shadow of Chernobyl.

#Games like gone home mod

Before its commercial release in 2012, Dear Esther famously began life as a mod for Half-Life 2. It’s this pragmatism, as much as the ideas behind it, that paved the way for Dear Esther‘s success, and ensured its legacy. “ Dear Esther was a way of making a first-person game that I don’t think I could have done any other way at that point.”

“My first and overwhelming passion in games is first-person gaming,” says Dan Pinchbeck, founder of The Chinese Room, and producer of Dear Esther. Yet while Dear Esther was praised for its bold and lofty vision, the roots of the game were far more practical than might be apparent at face value. READ MORE: Here’s why walking sims are as important as any other gaming genre.The game, which sees players explore a blustery and foreboding Hebridean island while a nameless narrator reads fragments of letters written to his deceased wife, was acclaimed for its radical reinterpretation of first-person gaming, and played a significant role in the emergence of the genre that became known as ‘walking simulators.’ Eerie, beautiful, a touch aloof, it ranks alongside the likes of Braid, Fez, and other high-minded games that helped legitimise indie gaming during the rise of Steam and Xbox Live. Released ten years ago today, Dear Esther is a landmark indie title.