Gone Home Review

Ah, Gone Home. The OG Walking Simulator game that put a name to a whole genre. You play as Katie, who just returned home from being overseas wanting to visit her family. She returns home and finds a house with nobody in it, all deserted. A lot of the family’s items are in boxes around the house. Katie finds a note on the door from her sister Samantha that opts her to search the house for clues as to what has happend.

Rummaging through the house, reading letters, post cards and other documents Katie learns that her sister Sam had difficulty living in this new town although she found a friend named Lonnie. Lonnie and Sam ended up romantically inclined, something her parents was against even soforth being in denial that their daughter is a lesbian. Lonnie is a Reserves Officer cadet, and is sent to ship out leaving Sam saddend.

Katie learns that the day she was to come home coincided with her parents being on a trip, and that Sam would not be there because she chose to drive out to find Lonnie and start a life with her. Besides this main narrative, a lot can be learned about the family by reading the tid bits of information around the house.

When Gone Home came out back in 2013 it was the first game ever to be called a Walking Sim – used in a derogatory way. Ever since, the term has been associated with a whole genre of games where the main objective is to explore by ‘walking around’, and making that the main part of the games story telling. When Gone Home came out it met a very positive critique from game journalists and got praised for being very artistic. Putting a spin on how to tell a story though a video game it is easy to see how.

When playing Gone Home you have no quests, no markers or pointers and no real objective. You are let loose in a large house to your own account. You can pick up most objects, and find a ton of written material to rummage through. There is a bit of narrative from the protagonist as you move through the house but besides that most of the story is done through reading the different documents.

Back in 2013 this was new and exciting, but in later years when a lot more Walking Sims has emerged, and done it a whole lot better, Gone Home seems to have aged already. It is rather slow, and the story is sluggish to get through. That being said Gone Home still looks good, and the ambience is rather nice. You walk around the house to the sound of heavy rain and thunder storm, whilst reading about the house being haunted and what not.

All in all Gone Home was a genre-defining game, and definatly deserves a playthrough for that reason. But if you are a fan of Walking Sims there certainly has been released better titles since.