The Suicide of Rachel Foster Reviews
The game was released with broken basic Xbox feature - achievements. We cannot endorse such carelessness. The game had potential, but we can't see the point of buying it on Xbox.
Review in Polish | Read full review
There will be people who like The Suicide of Rachel Foster because they are able to sidestep away from the whole pedophilia aspect, which is only a possibility because the game itself tries to frame it differently. I can’t tell you how much I initially wanted to like The Suicide of Rachel Foster — I played it twice and watched several let’s plays to make sure I wasn’t missing anything. But the developer really needed to handle these topics better, or at least have one character that didn’t sympathize with the sex offender. Ethical issues aside, the environments were great, but everything else fell flat. There is no recommendation here, only concern.
The Suicide of Rachel Foster doesn’t try to hide its muse. Anybody who has seen Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 hit classic, The Shining, will certainly see similarities between both properties’ settings and pieces.
Topics of grooming and sexual abuse are here but distorted into a bizarre romanticized narrative that not only undermines the ideas, it actually damages the game’s credibility. I really wanted to like Suicide of Rachel Foster and I think games as an interactive medium are actually well-equipped to tell these hard-hitting and difficult stories – but not from this perspective. Whether on purpose or not, the tone-deaf narrative promises to tackle these subjects diligently but does nothing of the sort. Instead, Suicide Of Rachel Foster is a game in serious need of a rewrite and difficult to recommend in its current state.
The Suicide of Rachel Foster is well constructed when it comes to design and mechanics, but is let down if you stop to examine the plot for a moment. The deeper into the game you get, the more it feels like it's trying to shock rather than effectively engage with serious topics.
The Suicide of Rachel Foster builds a haunting hotel, but fills it with an insensitive story ill-equipped to deal with the issues it covers.
It's a shame that with so many models available, from which to draw its inspiration, The Suicide of Rachel Foster has done less well almost in every way and has only managed to emulate by the themes addressed and the way they are treated.
Review in French | Read full review
From the title of this game and the strange imagery of its accompanying photo, you can tell straight away it’s not going to be an uplifting game. When I saw The Suicide of Rachel Foster pop up on our review list and confirming its genre of thriller on the Xbox Store, I was wary. Horror games are not my thing; being the biggest wimp has me screaming bloody murder even in non-horror games, simply being chased has me throwing my controller down (remember The Rugrats: Search for Reptar? Well, I was terrified of the goose in the maze.)
In the end, The Suicide of Rachel Foster feels like the quintessential first draft of a horror/drama flick latched to a graceless gameplay template. The excitement and deliberate pacing early on suggest learning from the industry’s best exemplars. Ominous warnings suggest ghosts are roaming The Timberline’s halls. As it progresses, however, uncoordinated game design and tonally-tangled storytelling turns that engagement frozen stiff. Like walking through a grand hotel with years of decay, you can’t help but wonder how it could fare under new management.
The Suicide of Rachel Foster has all the components of a great game. It has mature themes and storytelling, an idea for a mysterious and captivating narrative, and the ability to replicate a style of game that’s been embraced by gamers for the last decade. Unfortunately the game also stumbles across a few hurdles that it was never able to recover from.
The Suicide of Rachel Foster is a beautiful, promising introduction and a slow, meaningless story with minimal interactivity, far-fetched mysticism, and a frustrating ending. All that can sweeten a failure is the graphics, but there are also drawbacks. If you love a good and deep detective adventures, your princess certainly is in another castle.
Review in Russian | Read full review
The Suicide of Rachel Foster tackles challenging subject matter and bravely invites comparisons to recent indie favorites, but all the ambition in the world can't make up for an unengaging story, clunky gameplay, and some unfortunate tone-deaf moments. If you loved Gone Home or Firewatch, you're better off just playing them again – Rachel Foster is a ghostly shadow of those classics.
I’m glad I played it. I find some sort of weird excitement in being monumentally disappointed by stories — they give me context on what we appreciate in the titles we do enjoy. So if you are like me, The Suicide of Rachel Foster might just be worth your time.
It’s difficult to give a score to The Suicide of Rachel Foster. I could have loved this game. And I did really enjoy it, right up until the last moment. It was everything I wanted in a walking sim. Creepy, atmospheric, with interesting characters and a rich, detailed environment. But it was ultimately let down by the end of the story, which mishandles a pretty sensitive topic, and left me feeling disappointed and frustrated.
Some people will play The Suicide of Rachel Foster and think it’s a tense and engaging thriller that pushes the medium to new uncharted territory. Others will play the game and despise it, calling it gross and tone-deaf. My thoughts on their opinions? I think they are both right.
All in all, The Suicide of Rachel Foster is an okay but not great game. It is a well-polished 90’s style mystery-thriller game. That tries hard to create an atmosphere of tension and creepiness with twists you expect from a game of this style. For the most part, it succeeds, but never reaches its full potential due to multiple flaws that ruin the game’s immersion that it tries so hard to build.
I know it may seem difficult to believe, but I didn’t actually hate the game. Aside from the issues I have with it from a narrative standpoint, it was fine, and therein lies my struggle to recommend it outright: It’s just fine. There is nothing particularly special or interesting or revolutionary in The Suicide of Rachel Foster that you couldn’t get in any other walking simulator without having to simultaneously excuse a story that explores predatory behaviour in a way that is questionable at best, and seriously harmful at worst.
The Timberland did a fantastic job at grasping my initial attention to uncover its dark secrets, but I felt quite relieved to check out as soon as I could.
The Sucide of Rachel Foster was advertised with its mature story about a really delicate matter and although these themes are still present in the game, they fail to catch the player’s attention. As a result, we received another generic walking symulator the potential of which was buried by the lack of experience.
Review in Polish | Read full review
With a lengthier campaign and better character development, The Suicide of Rachel Foster could've been an engrossing equivalent to first-person adventure-style mysteries prior.