Dear Esther: Landmark Edition

I think I've been just mislead by the stupidity of the masses, who call Death Stranding a "walking simulator". I like DS (plus several games that are ACTUALLY similar to Dear Esther, I'm not stoopid) so I thought I'd give this a try, and GAAAAAAAAAAAAAWD, I hope I got this for free somewhere, somehow, or it was on sale for 99cents, because the thought of having paid ten bucks for this horrifies me*. It tries to be all artsy and athmospheric, "look at all the storytelling while you walk at a snail's pace through our athmospheric landscape that makes you feel real deep for liking depressing weather!"- like, but unfortunately that's about it. Now I know what an actual walking simulator is. Maybe this could work, you know, if this game was mindnumbingly beautiful. But it isn't. Or if it was intriguing somehow, but it isn't. You're walking painfully slowly through a landscape you can't interact with in any way (for as long as I endured this), and the "game" greatly hints at this stayi...

Posh bloke utters fragmentary speeches about a woman we don't know, on an island we don't know and where we can't explore any of the interesting bits. Are we him? Are we the mysterious Donnelly? Do we care? Nope. Fortunately it's only very short, even at walking pace.

I was not the target audience. If I were and maybe if I were in a slightly better mood for a meditative, contemplative game, it would have been perfect. Still recommend giving it a try if you enjoy walking simulators. Also great score.

TLDR: Not worth the price I enjoy walking sims with lore that you unravel as you explore as much as the next person, but this one was just too slow for me and the story was confusing all the way to the end. I think the game could have benefited from either being smaller or having the ability to run. There are little side areas to check out but they take so long to get to and usually have no payoff and then you have to spend 10 minutes walking back. That being said, if this game was free, I would absolutely recommend it, but for $11 it was quite frankly too boring.

I dare to suggest some mod for this "game:" the voice over should be completely toggleable. Part of the replay value of the walking simulation genre ought to be precisely to simply enjoy the walk again, but in silence, just with the sounds of the island. Or if anything, just with the music if desired. But no speaking voices, please. The voice should definitely be toggleable at least after having completed the game. There is a much lower replay/rewalking meditating value if one has to be forced to endure all those words again while walking.

this game is extremely FUCKING boring. The main player base of this game are 40 year old english teachers who read poetry and listen to classical.

«Hello traveler… You might be tired. It’s been a long journey lately… You deserve some rest now. And enjoy your time here!» In a nutshell… The game lets you just enjoy the view. This should be noticeable from the screenshots I took. Something like a tour. Walk and look… and you can read, if you set up subtitles.

This isnt a game, its a walking sim that allows you to form your own thoughts on what the story is about. Very vague in a good sense of the word Id say, really enjoyed it! If you dont like slow pace and no sprint avoid it for sure.

The landmark edition isn't any better than the version that came before. It's a walking sim, and a boring one at that. But, it has beautiful environments and excellent music. So I'll give it a pass.

This is NOT worth $10. I got it on sale I believe, and I think you can tell how much I liked the game. Really wish the walking was faster and the map to not be as big because I very quickly got tired of wandering around so slowly. Overall just really boring. Spend your $10 on a better game!