Tacoma
Tacoma is a narrative adventure set aboard a high-tech space station in the year 2088. As you go about your mission, you’ll explore every detail of how the station’s crew lived and worked, finding the clues that add up to a gripping story of trust, fear, and resolve in the face of disaster. At the heart of Tacoma is the facility’s digital surveillance system, which has captured 3D recordings of pivotal moments in the crew’s life on the station. As you explore, echoes of these captured moments surround you. You’ll use your ability to rewind, fast-forward, and move through the physical space of these complex, interwoven scenes to examine events from every angle, reconstructing the multi-layered narrative as you explore. Tacoma is the next game from the creators of Gone Home, and carries on that tradition of detailed, immersive, and powerful storytelling, while pulling players deeper into the narrative than ever before.
Game Discussion
Steam User 7
This game feels very surreal in our current political climate (2025). Please everyone, remember we're all human. Take care of one another. Stand up for one another. Don't let corps take advantage of you!
Steam User 7
A short yet sweet story driven game set on an orbital space station. You unravel the story and get to know the 6 inhabitants by exploration and Augmented Reality. If you like gentle story games that are well crafted and pleasing to play then this will suit you.
Steam User 4
TLDR: A well constructed story experience
Pros:
- I like the way Tacoma tells its story, it's very fun to pick through an event over and over while following a different thread each time
- the writing holds up, people feel realized, and you can intuit the gaps in the recordings, and the parts you need to fully understand the story are all there if you look, I never felt lost or out of the loop
- it's got a fun undertone, looking for the cat in each room or doing some of the other extra stuff for achievements highlights this
- While today, AI as we know it is lightyears away from what is present in the game, the themes of how people's lives are controlled by and intertwined with corporate power, has only aged like fine wine
Neutral:
- I wish there was an additional interaction button, since LMB is how you grab and drop items, as well as how you open doors, I kept accidentally dropping stuff i was trying to carry into another room (you could say skill issue though, because as long as your cursor is on the interact prompt you can open a door without dropping stuff)
- I forgot to check if there was an option to enable subtitles in the menu, but if there is it seems like it should be on be default
- in rooms with multiple conversations, I sometimes struggled to hear what was said in the overlap. Granted the spatial audio has very short fall off, so as long as you are standing right next to the character you want to focus on, you'll be able to hear just fine
Cons:
- I sometimes wish I could move a tad faster, a toggle sprint or light jog would have been nice, but then again I went back and forth a lot more than a normal playthrough when trying to get all achievements
Steam User 4
An interesting game to play in our current technological climate. I can't say I outwardly disagree with any of the ideas posed in this game, but the position taken is a seemingly dated one. Either that or this entire thing flew way over my head.
There is also the caveat that I have very mixed feelings about the way the player interacts with the game itself. I had very little agency in anything that happened and my personal curiosity and interest were never met with any kind of response. That isn't overtly negative as I think the idea is you as the employee are an onlooker, but it would have been cool to have a little more happen in response to my active participation in all the little dots being connected.
By engaging with the gameplay mechanics like viewing chat logs and work station messages I learned things and then that was it. This game took me about 3 hours to beat because I really wanted to look into all that I could with the hope that the game would reward me in some way. Instead I just kind of learned more about the characters, but much of it had little to do with the plot.
I hope to play through this once or twice more because I feel like there is some bigger idea I'm not picking up on.
I say all this, but the game is still spectacular. Coming from the studio that made Gone Home this is a very decent and competent walking sim that surely any fan of the previous game would enjoy.
Steam User 4
A good 3-D sci-fi game. Can 100% in under two hours, so it is quite short.
Steam User 3
I came into this game expecting Obra Dinn in space. Please understand that you will not quite get that experience here.
I'm a big fan of detective/deduction type games like Obra Dinn and Golden Idol, etc, and I originally got this anticipating that experience in a Sci-Fi setting. This game is not that, however I was very pleasantly surprised by the experience.
This is closer to a walking simulator like Edith Finch than it is to a detective game. There is still an interesting mystery to unravel and absorb, however you will not be in charge of solving it, if you play through the game, the mystery will be solved for you as the game conveys its story to you.
I was not aware of this fact and took notes the entire time, expecting myself to need to solve the mystery myself at some point, I did not need to, however I think it still added to my experience.
There is a LOT of great detail, environmental storytelling, and great character interactions throughout this story, more than enough to take notes on and come to your own little "aha!" moments as you piece things together.
The game is relatively short, you can beat it in an afternoon if you dedicate one to it, but still a great experience and one that left me very satisfied with my purchase.
Steam User 3
I really enjoyed both the writing and environmental storytelling. It's more of a story that's being told to you than a game (e.g. it has no "puzzles" to complete it). But it's also philosophical and very grounded sci-fi. A good experience with great visuals on a space station.