The Vanishing of Ethan Carter (PlayStation 4) Review

When most photorealistic-looking games present themselves, they more often than not have stunning environments, but horribly executed characters. The animation isn't right, the artists were not able to leverage the limits of the hardware well enough, or the artists weren't skilled enough in the first place. The Vanishing of Ethan Carter is no exception; when human characters are on screen, they look quite goofy and have weak and weightless animation that clashes with the realistic setting.

The narrative is mostly expressed via visuals or visions that the protagonist, Paul Prospero sees due to his supernatural gifts. Paul will often make ambiguous or vague comments like a good noire detective should, delivering a deep and breathy line reading that sounds like velvet to the ears. Paul's narrations truly do give The Vanishing of Ethan Carter some flavour for what could have been a very bland game, and the performer should be commended.

The core game revolves around Paul Prospero wandering the open-ended expanses of Red Creek Valley's splendour. Mostly made up of spooky forests, the town itself is pretty secluded with most of the amenities being run down. After only a few clues and listening to Paul's narration it becomes quite clear why things are so abandoned, and while the execution is quite deft, it doesn't feel satisfying because The Vanishing of Ethan Carter may have laid out all its cards on the table far too early for the narrative to develop any suspense or allure.

The setup is quite simple: Paul Prospero, paranormal detective extraordinaire gets a fan letter from 12-year-old Ethan Carter. Upon Paul's arrival he finds the town abandoned and gets invested with a dark secret of Red Creek Valley, which ties to Ethan's family. As Paul, the game requires investigation and exploration of the town. What The Vanishing of Ethan Carter does well is create an unsettling atmosphere of mystery while never arbitrarily guiding the player via clumsy objective markers or blatant instructions. This non-hand holding approach is very refreshing and invites to explore every nook and cranny, although the lack of a map of Red Creek Valley is sorely felt here, and seems like a missed opportunity to expand on the narrative, as well as make the gameplay more focused to prevent wasting time.

A flawless example of clever map integration into a narrative-focused game was Silent Hill and the two sequels that had the main characters jot personal notes, with the map itself looking like an actual town map. Since Red Creek Valley is so large, oftentimes there will be moments of just hugging the invisible barriers in vain attempts to make sure all points of interest have been seen.

Other than wandering the naturalistic-looking woods, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter will have Paul Prospero solve some puzzles. Some of these will involve combing the landscape for some vague key item to use somewhere, which is both wonderfully and horribly executed at the same time. Due to the lack of explanation, some of these interesting objects become mysterious and the sense of discovery becomes palpable; however, this also leads to some really obtuse and absurd leaps of logic for some of the puzzles. It really becomes a mixed bag for the game's strongest aspect (apart from the visuals) that it remains vague, but also at times illogical, which breaks the immersion of the setting.

The other puzzle type that gets more action, which also is a bit clumsier when it comes to delivering the exposition and plot, involves setting up a chronology of events with ghostly figures. These are the least interesting and most dull moments of the game since it usually involves some element of trial and error, and the scenes that play out are not particularly well done or acted.

The Vanishing of Ethan Carter will come to an abrupt end after a few hours, and the big reveal, which is fairly predictable, but still otherwise effective, undermines a lot of the tension and horror. It is difficult to explain without spoiling it, but the general idea is that some of the best ideas and genuinely creepy concepts of the story just have no real stakes at all. The Astronauts have made a very beautiful-looking 3D environment to explore and roam, with some minor attempt at interactivity with some space-bending puzzles and lonely atmosphere, but this is a "one and done" kind of game.

Watching someone play it on YouTube would possibly be as much as a rewarding experience as actually playing it, since the core game is still mostly a walking sim with a few puzzles and jump-scares sprinkled in to keep things interesting. Given the very slow pace of the game, it is unlikely anyone would want to ever replay it. It makes for a decent tech demo of what the Unreal Engine 4 can do for environments, which has by far the most impressive grass/foliage effects ever in a game.