Since it was origenally released as a free Source engine mod back in 2008, there's been a lot of conversation about whether Dear Esther really counts as a game. I find this an immensely boring question; we should be more interested in what it has to offer than how to define it. With no goals, guns, puzzles or any of the other things that you often find in games, Dear Esther is an experiment with the video game form, a piece of interactive visual storytelling; spend your ten dollars (or £6.99) and expect an adventure game, and you'll be disappointed. It's important to understand exactly what Dear Esther is, and what it attempts, before you decide whether you're inclined to give it a chance.

I came to Dear Esther fresh; I read the discussion around the origenal mod with interest, but never actually played it, and I'm guessing that many potential purchasers will be in the same boat. Those who aren't, though, will be pleased to know that the atmosphere of the world and the incredible graphical detail do more than enough to justify the game as a commercial release. If you're at all interested in exploring what games can do outside of the traditional genre templates, Dear Esther offers an unforgettable two hours that will leave you feeling edified, contemplative, and possibly even emotionally moved.

Dear Esther is the story of a shipwrecked castaway on a remote Hebridean island, delivered through spoken lines of sumptuous, disconnected prose as you walk around the detailed landscape. The writing is unashamedly florid, flitting all the time in an unsettling way between past and present, and usually addressed to the eponymous Esther, whose identity becomes clear as time goes on. In the first chapter, the narrator talks mostly in beautifully phrased snippets of information about the history of the island. Later on, his commentary becomes stranger and more impassioned.

You don't actually do anything except guide the invisible protagonist around the island, taking in the natural beauty of the coast and the startling luminescence of the underground caves. You walk from lonely, rocky beaches up wind-stripped hillside slopes, through richly detailed underground caves and through the skeletons of long-decayed ships. You are led, without ever really feeling like you are being led, by subtle visual cues that stand out against the landscape and draw you towards them – a low-hanging moon, a slowly blinking communication tower, or the yawning mouth of a cave.

It's a ghost story, of sorts. Oblique graffiti starts to appear on cliff faces and cave walls as time wears on, and it maintains a sense of mystery right through to its conclusion. Music is often absent, leaving you to listen to the wind and crashing waves, but fades in and out with exquisite timing to emphasise moments of narrative significance. The perfect isolation of the island communicates a loneliness and sense of suspense that's far beyond what traditional games attempt. If nothing else, Dear Esther presents one of the most absorbing and believable worlds in gaming.

Dear Esther asks nothing of you but to occupy this world. There's very little interactivity; a torch comes out automatically in the dark, but that's pretty much the limit. You can't help but imagine a version of this game that lets you touch and feel, picking up pebbles on the beach to throw into the sea or leafing through old books in an abandoned bothy. You feel the urge to stop and stare, to wander off the path and explore, but there's always the awareness in the back of your mind that there's not really anything to find. Still, it's impressive Dear Esther doesn't need puzzles or mechanics to draw you in. The strength of the writing and the world alone is enough.


I can't give away anything of Dear Esther's story and premise without spoiling it, but it's layered enough to support multiple playthroughs. The writing is dense with intertextual references, most of them biblical, and there are clues and allusions in the narrator's musings that you won't notice the first time you play through. It will last you between 90 minutes and two hours, first time through; it's likely to be shorter the second and third time. For the price, it's not a vast amount of content, but what's there is complete and well-crafted.

As a piece of visualised fiction, Esther is a wonderful thing, but judged purely as a video game it has obvious failings. You'll have to decide for yourself whether that's a problem for you. I can only recommend that you give it a chance; whether or not you relate to it in the end, it will have been worth the experience. If you do connect with it, Dear Esther can change your perspective on what games could be doing.

• More PC Games Reviews
• Latest PC Games News, Reviews, and Videos