Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture

This game is truly a treasure and I still feel some messages of it resonating in my soul. Walking through memories, through places where the everyday lives of the residents unfold before our eyes. Falling in and out of love, affairs, family disputes, who wants to date whom, who should stay away from whom. Here: we've entered the game. Meanwhile, there are sentences woven in with depths worth capturing in a photo and saving for rainy days when we can look out the window and ponder what life really means to us.
The story begins mysteriously. We don't know much about what happened. We get some guidance on understanding what is happening to the residents, but most of it can only be pieced together if we play through to the end.
The game is divided into chapters and each chapter shows the story of a different character, often ending with catharsis. Every character is different, and you just can’t wait to see who the next will be, whose soul you will see, whose story will touch your heart (or break it) next.
This is not a cheerful game, rather it’s incredibly moving and profoundly sad. If you find the beauty in that, it is your game. As the title suggests, everybody’s gone to the rapture and we piece together what happened from the memories and audio recordings left behind.
The basic gameplay is a walking simulator, so the gaming experience largely consists of walking around, following a beam of light, and listening to the events. We can interact with some elements, but these are mostly toys, doors, and playground elements. There are no puzzles to solve, our task is simply to experience the world around us and put together the story.
For me, the game's greatest advantages were:
- Jessica Curry's music, especially the parts with a chorus are incredibly touching and stay with the player long after. It is transcendental. I would play through it again and again just for the music.
- The dialogues feel real, making it easy to immerse oneself in the story
- The graphics are high-quality, and I often stopped to take a screenshot of the haunting, lonely landscape.
- The storytelling has a poetic way, very deep meanings, and a really good narration with the voice actors. They truly excelled.
Possible drawbacks:
- Even for a walking simulator, progress can be quite slow, although there is a fast walk option but it's not always usable. So, patience is needed. Also, if someone wants to complete all the achievements, one playthrough is not enough.
- For me, it was quite hard to start the memories with mouse in the beginning. This could have been made simpler. Essentially, you have to drag the light sphere horizontally back and forth until you find the point where it's the smallest.
- You are all alone, and the story can be quite dark, even the scenes darken sometimes, so it may give off some moderate horror vibes. But there is nothing in the gameplay that can hurt you.
All in all I wholeheartedly recommend it and I want to end the review with the most beautiful piece of quote I have ever seen in a game so far (spoiler!):
We are born apart, driftwood on the banks of an endless dark ocean, and we will be carried away by the swell soon enough. But in between, in the single day of living, that dancing in a strip of sunlight, we can find what we miss, the love that makes us whole, the immanence.

After 12.5 hours I have finished this and it is one of the best 'games' (experiences) I've ever participated in. It is so immersive and so beautifully created, with love (You can tell). Some don't like that you can't run, but that's okay, most people don't run in life as they go about their day so walking is what makes it immersive you see, in part. The voice acting is 10/10, the world you are in also. The story, if it was a piece of literature, would rival famous works of Literature. The soundtrack could make you love a genre (eerie and pure choirsong) you never loved before. The experience is a perfect length. It's one of the coolest games I'll ever play, for its story is that incredible. It's borderline horror and at the same time something borderline holy.
10/10

Why r the reviews of this game so mixed? Am i far away from the crowd or the community isnt the refined community we imagined?
Anyway, it'll be better if i do my own job. Then, welcome to a low quality review of a high quality game.
As u can see from the reviews, the game may seem boring to many people at first. If u don't let yourself be amazed by the environmental details in the game and expect to jump into action right at the beginning, this game will definitely bore u. :/
Another reason for this situation, there isnt the main charecter in the game kind of we are accustomed.
Similarly, we r looking at the world through the eyes of a character who is completely devoid of commentary, never speaks and never give reacts to things. In fact, we dont even know who we are in the game. Despite that, the story takes place in a post apocalyptic period so we r in a completely desolate environment with not a single human being around.
And the two main characters in the story presented by the game Kate n Stewen, they r not playable characters.
Should we talk about that characters;
Okie, these two characters r married eachother and both of them r scientists.
Steven is a character who was born n raised in the fictional town, Youthan and later moved to Usa to continue his professional researches, who leaved his fiancée behind. :P
When he in Usa, he meets with Kate and later convinces her to return to Youthan with him. After this, Steven and Kate start working at a local observation tower in Youthan. The main part of story starts here at the observation tower.
Kate is a more attractive character for who touch her in own way and tryna know her. Thats why i wont undermine the experince by talking about her.
Kate n Steven while working together, one day they notice a pattern of light in the sky. To examine this pattern more closely, they approach it with their telescopes. At this point, the pattern of light burns the faces of both of them and causing permanent skin damage. Ofc, this situation greatly intrigues both scientists and motivating them to delve deeper into the pattern of light.
After this incident, the game presents us with traces of past from the perspective of both characters, allowing us to see the story from each character's point of view.
We understand her thoughts well and what happens to Kate by listening to the radio tapes we find in the environment.
With Steven, we can explore his story by triggering light illusions from the past that we see in the environment.
After the mentioned light pattern burn, Kate prefers to stay in the research tower, immersing herself more in this event so to speak closing herself off to that observatory.
Therefore, we can reach the technical details of the light pattern and the outbreak it caused through Kate.
On the other hand, Steven is a character who touched the local people by going outside. Allows us to learn the mini stories of the people around and what they did during the outbreak through him.
For example, through steven we become involved in the stories of characters like father of town Jeremy, the elderly woman Wendy, and Frank the man who lost his wife.
More importantly, in Steven's sequences we see stories about Steven's ex fiancée Lizzie.
The best thing here is that, the game doesn't condemn us to a single linearity or not try the be guide while trying to direct us towards anything. U can even finish the game by skipping the path of one of the characters, without the obligation to progress in sequence.
Everybody's Gone to the Rapture presenting a story that is a mixture of drama and science fiction through this narrative approach to us. At the end of the game, we see a section that we can contemplate and discuss. And that's super nice.
As u know, the concept of 'rapture' as mentioned in the title of the game, is according to belief 'the second coming of Jesus and the salvation of humanity. In the game, beautiful and ironic narrative is used regarding this concept.
Kate sees the outbreak as a salvation but at the same time Steven is quite afraid and panicking about the situation. So what about us? I wont talk about it to avoid spoiling the surprise.
About sounds n music;
Alright, voice acting perfectly well for each character in the game. I especially admired the voice actor who voiced the character of Lizzie for her pure English accent, she was very successful.
Furthermore, sounds were quite successful and musics were truly wonderful. I can't go without saying that, some of the musics rly gave me goosebumps.
One of the founders of the game's developer 'Chinese Room, Jessica Curry collaborated with Sony Music to compose n perform beautiful soprano pieces for this game. From the beginning to the end of the game wonderful classical musical performance accompanies players ears continuously.
The emotion intended to be conveyed with the rising of the music during chapter transitions is very well portrayed.
Many times, i found myself setting down the controller and listenin' to these music pieces for minutes.
About the gameplay;
i can say that, yes the game is quite slow, it didnt bother me much but still i can understand community's compaints about this situation.
Okey, i give a fun fact, when u want to play the game with a gamepad, you won't able access to sprint button. In fact, a sprint mechanic has been added to the game, but they forgot to add it to the gamepad control scheme, so you cant use the sprint mechanic when playing with a gamepad. lol! It's the biggest drawback i can say about the gameplay cuz it's severely hampers the replayability of the game with a character that moves so slowly. As i said, this situation adds unnecessary sluggishness to game.
Another aspect that makes the game unnecessarily heavy and unrealistic is, in the game almost all rooms in every house these r locked.
Other than that, there r almost no interactive activities in the game. There r only a few things we can interact with in a couple of places in the game.
Also, the game's achievement system is broken and not working. :/
When it comes to the graphics;

I often stopped to feel the environment, these were quite beautiful experiences.
The dynamic weather engine in the game was the best implemented engine feature i've seen in any game so far.
I truly believe that could dazzle your eyes.
Generally, the game offered me a unique, peaceful n beautiful experience. Although i occasionally got bored with the slowness of the game during my playtime, usually its unhurried pace made me happy.
If i should have to give a score to the game, it would easily get a 9 from me.
(Thankies to Lulu for giving me the opportunity to experience this cute game. My pain hasn't lessened, but the bond with a wonderful friend has grown stronger.)

The slow walking isn't that bad. Yes, it could be 20% faster, the run button could be better. But, it isn't a very long game, and walking in the countryside isn't typically a fast pursuit. Play it in a few chunks and enjoy the setting and the musical interludes. Some of the tracks hit really nicely, there's a mix of choral-type songs and some more folkish fantasy type songs.
The settings are visually pleasant, with some nice atmospheric moments at the end of the chapters - I really liked Wendy's end sequence. Sometimes it feels cosy, sometimes eerie. The voice acting is clear and legible, you'll hear a range of different types of mostly ordinary rural British people (and an American). Some assets do get recycled a bit often and I'd have liked the memory figures to have more distinct forms but it is reasonably faithful to the time it's set in, 1984. There are a few small anachronisms but it's not too bad. I did also experience some microstutters.
The main plot reminds me a bit of the Witness, a little pie-in-the-sky, a little ambiguous in its ending. There's scifi-ish speculation on matters of metaphysics, belief, mortality, afterlife etc with a clear nod to chaos theory. I found the relational dynamics with the villagers and scientists more interesting. You can usually appreciate why they have the views they do, whether you agree or not.
Stephen was probably the most interesting in that I ended up taking against him quite a bit by the end. I could absolutely see why he would be considered brilliant, charismatic and attractive by some of the characters, but I distinctly didn't like some of the actions he took near the end of the game. He came across to me as somewhat sociopathic. And, you know, if he hadn't been there at all, maybe things would have turned out differently. But who really knows.
It is a little sad to see it all unfold, but it is a nice game. The achievements are a bit of a pain, I would consider ahead of time whether or not you want to do those. You can do it in two playthroughs but I preferred to play organically the first time so I had to do 3.5 runs (Backtracker bugged so I had to do that one on its own).

First off, it's a walking simulator. And yes, your character is very slow. So don't expect a high-speed Doom type of gameplay. This game is 100% about story but that's what makes it great.
I played this when I built my first gaming PC because I wanted to see it with some proper hardware. It was worth putting off on PS4. Looking "like real life" can honestly be boring. This game is not super realistic but beauty comes in different ways. This game is proof of that. What really got me was the story. The game is a semi-free roam but it still guides you along with visual cues. The music is beautiful. Well deserving of its BAFTA win along with audio design, and Merle Dandridge's win for performance

Absolutely beautiful – the visuals, the music, the story, the melancholy. Cozy gaming for those who enjoys a bit of sadness.

The visual and sound design is excellent, high production values.
The story is disturbing and sad, but good.
I beat the game in about 6 hours and that was taking my time to explore.

Main issue with the game is as a walking simulator, the walking could be a bit faster.
If you don't like this type of game it isn't going to change your mind but I found it enjoyable.
If you're depressed don't play this game.