The Vanishing of Ethan Carter Review: true detective

“This game is a narrative experience that does not hold your hand.” These are the opening words of The Vanishing of Ethan Carter (TVEC) and they should not be taken lightly. Enter a beautiful but strange world and unearth a twisted conspiracy that takes place in the fictional town of Red Creek Valley. TVEC is a title that was produced by The Astronauts, a small independent game company from Warsaw, Poland. But once you enter its brilliantly constructed world you wouldn’t even know that you’re not playing a big budget, AAA-title.

Story Time

TVEC is immediately mysterious. This First-Person-Mystery-Solving-Adventure-Game (a long but worthy title) places you in a small rural town located somewhere in Red Creek Valley. You play as Paul Prospero, a private detective with supernatural abilities, and you are investigating the disappearance of a young boy named Ethan Carter. It is a simple premise but one that will take you on a dark and mysterious journey into the paranormal world of the occult.

The storyline unfolds in many different ways. Firstly, your character will narrate as you explore the world, usually triggered by certain locations or discoveries in the game. Some places you walk by or enter will also bring up short dialogues of Ethan and other characters, presumably a product of your supernatural abilities. At its core it is an interactively driven narrative. Most of the story’s substance comes from solving the mysteries scattered around the abandoned town, which will fill the missing plot holes of your character’s case.

The narrative of the game is hypnotically engrossing and from the start you will realise that this won’t be a normal gaming experience. It is something different, a blend of old recipes that results in a pleasingly unique product. Don’t for one moment think you know what is going on. As the storyline progresses it get more and more intriguing, and exceedingly bizarre with every step you take.

Visual Orgasms

TVEC is, simply put, one of the most beautiful games I have ever played. The graphics are amazingly attractive and you will encounter stunning natural scenery that was built with painstaking detail. You will find yourself walking through long stretches of woods, between large mountains and over roaring rivers. Nothing feels constructed or choreographed. It feels as if you are walking in a natural part of the world. Everything around you has a potent sense of realism, making it easy to lose yourself in this game. The hours will pour away as you explore this place and somewhere inside you there will be a hint of regret that you can’t stand up right now and buy your ticket to actually visit this extraordinary location.

But there is even more beauty to see, hidden behind the mask of this hyper-real world. When solving mysteries you enter a parallel dimension and the whole world around you turns into ghostly hues of blue. It reminds me much of the world Frodo from Lord of the Rings enters when he puts on the One Ring, with everything having a transparent and ethereal appearance to it.

Beyond the inanimate world, the game is also filled with edge-of-your-seat cinematic moments with dynamic events taking place that are worthy of a special-effects ridden blockbuster movie. Couple this with the brilliant sound design of the environment, the dreamy music score and you have one hell of a gaming package. Warning: visual orgasms may occur during gameplay.

Game time

Your job: solving a series of mysteries that will eventually unveil the answer to the ultimate question: “Where is Ethan Carter?” But this is no easy task. Simply put, TVEC is not an easy game and you will frequently find yourself engulfed in a raging fit of frustration as you seek your next step.

The game world is massive and confusing. For most of the game there is no map to guide you and you will probably spend a lot of your time just roaming around the forest trying to figure out what your next step should be. What makes this even more annoying is your sprint. Even though it is unlimited, it is really more of a brisk walk. Your best guide is looking for “Inspect” prompts littered around the game, which usually are good indicators that you are in the right place. But then it is up to you to decipher the situation and discover your objective.

When you interact with the “Inspect” prompts you will see key words floating around, connected to the investigating thought pattern of your protagonist. This will give you a hint for what is necessary to solve the mystery you are currently handling. There is always one part of the mystery that you can observe via your supernatural “sense” ability that reveals an essential clue leading to the solution.

For some, maybe even most, the game might be a bit long-winded. But that is only due to the high-end titles we are treated to presently, which put emphasis on short-term satisfaction and rapidly achievable goals. But in most of these games you are usually busy doing one task, which in most cases doesn’t involve any thinking. The rest of the game you are sitting with your jaw dropped as fantastic cut-scenes shock your easily-pleased mind.

TVEC has buttery-smooth gameplay from start to finish. Your hands will not leave your keyboard or controller for one second. You are constantly interacting with the environment and instead of being forced to sit back and watch any cinematic moments, you are actively participating in them. To me, this is what gaming is about, participating. If you wanted to watch a movie then you would put on a film. We want to play games because movies aren’t enough. We want to be a part of the story. We want to be the reason for the progression of events taking place and this is exactly what TVEC masterfully offers.

Verdict: The Vanishing of Ethan Carter is a game so astonishingly beautiful that it dwarfs any and all of its faults. You disappear into a world that is so convincing that the life beyond your screen becomes a distant whisper. Solving the mystery of Ethan Carter is now your reality. Though the game is quite a short one, once you finish it you will feel as if you have just completed an epic saga after solving a plethora of mysteries within mysteries.

It is a game that requires some brain matter, which is something that I feel the AAA-gaming industry is severely lacking. At one end it shows us how spoilt we are in modern gaming with everything almost done for us. At the other end it reminds us that there is a special and rather useful organ tucked in between our ears. Personally, I think TVEC is one of the best games of 2014.

Score: 9/10

The Vanishing of Ethan Carter was reviewed on a super-powerful gaming PC