I played What Remains of Edith Finch. It was developed by Giant Sparrow, and I played it on my laptop, but a bigger screen would provide a better experience given the nature of the game. I personally don’t like walking simulators because most of them have some kind of spookiness. However, What Remains of Edith Finch maintained tension in a different way. This game is one of the most popular narrative-driven games, and players tend to enjoy its atmospheric experience. In this game, walking itself functions as the storytelling system. It is not just how you move through space, but how the game controls memory, pacing, and emotional buildup.
Walking in this game leads to the memories of each person connected to Edith. You explore their backstories while moving through the Finch house. When players walk into a space, they are also stepping into a specific moment in time. This makes walking feel almost like unlocking something personal. As the Salon article describes, walking simulator games prioritize exploration and narrative over mechanics. Thus, the movement in this game feels intentional and mysterious. While exploring, players reconstruct a family history piece by piece.
The mechanics are very simple since players mostly walk and interact with objects. These mechanics create dynamics of curiosity and tension. The aesthetic outcome is a strong sense of intimacy and sadness. I also watched a YouTube video after playing the game, and many comments mentioned that people felt a strong sense of immersion, with some even experiencing motion sickness. What I found most impressive was Lewis’s story and the game’s controls. The player needs to perform two actions at the same time, which are chopping salmon heads and walking. This reflects his unstable mental state and creates a strong connection for the player. These shifts show that walking is not fixed. It can be stretched into different forms depending on what the story needs.
What Remains of Edith Finch balances these elements by constantly giving you new interactions and clearly directing your path without making it feel forced. However, I think the game experience is highly controlled, and players have almost no influence on outcomes. I understand that this is part of the design, but it makes the game feel more like a interactive story than a game.
In What Remains of Edith Finch, there is almost no violence as a mechanic, but the game is centered around death. This creates a very different emotional response. Instead of feeling responsible for what happens, you feel like a witness to events that cannot be changed. The absence of interactive violence makes each story feel more real and more uncomfortable. There is no way to distance yourself through gameplay systems. You just have to experience it. Some sequences include symbolic or indirect forms of violence, but they are not something the player controls. It made me realize that removing violence can sometimes make a story feel more impactful because it forces you to pay attention rather than react.
The game has environmental storytelling which connects to the idea of embedded narratives. Each object in the house connects to the family’s history. Letters, photographs, and even the interior of the house have the story. At the same time, the way players move through the space creates different impressions. When I compare my play with the YouTube video, I realized I spent more time in some rooms. This can be interpreted as emergent narrative even though the main story is fixed. The first-person perspective deepens this because it feels like I am directly experiencing these memories rather than observing them from a distance.
I think What Remains of Edith Finch shows that walking can be more than just a mechanic. It brings out the emotions in players and lets them follow the shape of the story as intended. The game uses movement, space, and pacing in a really thoughtful way. Walking becomes a way of remembering, and the house feels like a physical representation of those memories. This made the experience feel personal in a way that many other games can’t really achieve.
