Everybody's Gone to the Rapture Reviews
Is Everybody's Gone to the Rapture a game, an experimental piece of interactive fiction, or is it perhaps even art? Whatever it is, the experience it delivers is a memorable one. It's gorgeous to look at, fantastic to listen to, and spins an intelligent and somewhat esoteric sci-fi mystery that's truly gripping through to its very end.
Everybody's Gone to the Rapture is an extraordinary piece of work, with things to say about pacing, writing, world-building and the communication of emotion that feel profoundly valuable to the industry. Along with its peers in this curiously expanding genre of being-in-the-world simulators, it will undoubtedly feed more furious debate about what games should be and what playing them should involve, but its great achievement, for me at least, was to render any such question spectacularly irrelevant during the time that its experience lasted.
The Chinese Room has managed to create one of the most insightful, meaningful, and emotional games that we've seen in some time, perhaps forever, and bravo to Sony for taking a real punt with something so completely arthouse.
Everybody's Gone to the Rapture's greatest accomplishment is making you care for its departed characters. Their personal stories give you an incredible glimpse of what life was like in their little corner of the world. They're not the nicest group of people. They can be selfish, stubborn, and downright stupid. But that's what makes them feel real and memorable. The most tragic part? You can't do a damned thing to save them.
It's not hard to see why this won a number of BAFTA awards… it is one of those examples that comes about from time to time of gaming being art. A true visual novel that draws you in and leaves you wanting more. Fantastic voice acting and musical score really just provide icing on the cake here. Very worthwhile!
An exceptional story, told via one of the most vivid game worlds around.
The studio behind Dear Esther and Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs have achieved audiovisual and narrative excellence with their latest adventure.
If you can let go of semantics and get involved in a story you don't control directly, then there may be something for you. It's a moving story told through gorgeous graphics, excellent voice acting, and a transcendent musical score that pleasures your ears during poignant moments. And yes, you basically just walk around much in the same way you can boil many games to just doing any number of repetitive actions. Give this a try. You may fall in love.
As light on gameplay as it is, Everbody's Gone to the Rapture is as beautiful as it is thought provoking. It's hard to find fault with its technical prowess, showcasing just how detailed interactive media can be, but on top of this we have a narrative that is disjointed yet somehow works wonderfully as it increases curiosity, and music that is poignant in all the right ways. If Dear Esther was pretentious, in my eyes, Everybody's Gone to the Rapture can only be described as enrapturing.
It won't be for everyone, but for those that love Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, it'll stay in the memory for a very long time indeed.
Even without any engaging mechanics (mostly walking around listening and interacting), Everybody's Gone to the Rapture's world is incredibly engrossing.
Everybody's Gone to the Rapture is a masterwork – a gorgeous and subtle experience, which treats you as an adult, without ever indulging in pretence. It cares about its characters enough to give them interesting and meaningful things to say, while also playing host to some truly breathtaking art direction and music.
Stunning production values and superb graphics and music collide in a fascinating work of interactive science fiction. Some many be put off by the lack of real interactivity and the slow pace of the gameplay, but more will find the story as interesting and resonant as the way it's told. Is it a game? Who cares? It's a stunning experience, whatever you want to call it.
Everybody's Gone to the Rapture is a wonderfully poignant, moving sci-fi journey. A fully realized world, excellent writing, superb voice acting, beautiful music, and a compelling, intriguing mystery are more than worth a few technical difficulties and some subpar mechanics. If you have any interest in narrative driven adventure games, you're sure to find a new favorite here.
What Everybody's Gone to the Rapture accomplishes with the well-worn post-apocalyptic genre is remarkable.
It's not a perfect game – There are some cheesy, overly melodramatic scenes that border on Soap Opera-esque levels of ridiculousness and the resolution will most certainly be unsatisfying for some – But it's almost a perfect experience.
An unforgettable experience, Rapture deserves to be played by anyone with a fondness for stories.
Offering a rich atmosphere and meaty philosophical concepts. . . Everybody's Gone to the Rapture paints a different kind of doomsday to all preceding incarnations
One of this year's easy contenders for game of the year, and for less than £16. That's what, a curry and pint?
Everybody's Gone to the Rapture is an interactive work of art. Those of us who can be demanding when it comes to the realm of virtual storytelling might spot some minor flaws. Aside from those flaws, and beyond those who complain about the speed and lack of input commands, the game stands tall in its efforts to reach a new level of interactive storytelling.