When What Remains of Edith Finch launched in 2017, it scored the elusive perfection as one of the best walking simulators ever thought. But that was five years ago. How does it feel to step into the lovingly crafted world of Giant Sparrow? The story is uniquely crafted in every way, just as it was at launch.
As Edith Finch, the last survivor of his family returns to his original home. Once inside, she collects many diaries detailing the bizarre and fantastical ways in which each member of her family was killed. Is your family cursed? Is it just a rotten chain of luck? The game doesn’t provide all the answers, nor does it need to. Everything is perfectly presented: the voice work is excellent, the soundtrack is excellent, the writing remains unique, and offers a delicate ballet of comfort and charm on the precipice of tragedy. Even if you know that you will be connected, everything is conveyed with sincerity and warmth, so you cannot forget the moment you experienced.
It’s easy to recommend playing the game solely for its writing merits, but it excels in other areas as well. At its core is the Walking Him simulator, but the vignettes demand a higher level of engagement than has traditionally been expected for the genre, creating more lasting memories of minute-by-minute gameplay. This is best illustrated by the infamous cannery vignette. Here, you take on the role of Lewis in one of the most creative sequences of gameplay ingenuity he’s ever seen on screen. And this sequence hasn’t lost its luster.
In fact, the game looks better than ever. One of the only drawbacks of the original title is its frame rate. It’s generally stable at 30 frames per second, but the motion blur and movement system can make it more disorienting than ideal. This is no longer the case as the game runs at native 4K resolution at 60 frames per second. The textures are pristine, the performance is silky smooth, and it’s as ominous as ever. Worse than the rest of the title. Not a big deal, but at least something to be aware of.
This upgrade also makes use of DualSense haptic feedback, so interacting with some items is much better than it was on the PS4 iteration. I was particularly impressed with the implementation of trigger tension when using the viewfinder and the flipbooks you can find.
All in all, What Remains of Edith Finch is a great game, and it’s even better thanks to the PS5 improvements. In 2017, it’s still a classic in every respect and a must-play.
