What Remains of Edith Finch, developed by the indie game studio Giant Sparrow and published by Annapurna Interactive in 2017, is a narrative-driven exploration game available on multiple platforms, including PlayStation, Xbox, PC, and Nintendo Switch. Designed as a first-person storytelling experience, the game invites players to unravel the mystery behind the seemingly cursed Finch family by exploring their abandoned home. With its emotional storytelling and experimental gameplay mechanics, What Remains of Edith Finch is targeted primarily at mature audiences who appreciate introspective, story-centric games over traditional action-based gameplay, though it is listed as a game for players age 12 and up. The game’s themes of death, memory, and family legacy resonate especially with players seeking meaningful, reflective experiences.
This was my first time playing a walking simulator game and before playing, I was pretty skeptical about how a game of just walking through a landscape could tell a compelling story. However, What Remains of Edith Finch was able to tell a story through simple yet effective methods. This game did well with simple walking and interacting mechanics – I was given the freedom to explore the house, first walking through the woods to get to the house, and once I figured out how to get into the house – which I was able to due to subtle clues in the environment – I was able to freely explore it. It’s a game of walking, but the walking is directed, and it being directed somehow does not make you feel like you are actually being forced to do anything – every action that is done still feels like your own choice as you walk through and explore the house and try to find clues about Edith Finch’s family. The aesthetic experience becomes one of emotional revelation and reflection. The game designer of Edith Finch is clever in telling the story through a detailed, beautiful environment, with subtle nudges through small white symbols that sometimes were barely noticeable – which I liked, as they did not take too much away from the storytelling – to open a certain box or open a specific door to continue in the correct direction of the story without making you feel like the story only has one direction to go in. For instance, I like how the text narration fits naturally into the environment and would blow or fade away, rather than just popping up as a text box. Having the text did not take away from my suspension of disbelief, which I liked. I also really felt like I was walking through a story – I could look down and see Edith’s body; I could see Edith’s arm as she went to open a box or door.
On the other hand, not all of the game mechanics were the most smooth. At times, I would want to turn one way or go in a certain direction and the game would not let me. This was logically a part of the storytelling process, but it occasionally disrupted the immersion by making the limitations of the game’s environment more visible. For example, while the game allowed me to explore freely, there were moments where I would reach a hallway or try to turn around, only to find that I couldn’t proceed, not because it made narrative sense, but because that area simply hadn’t been “unlocked” yet in the story. These moments momentarily broke the illusion that I was in control, revealing the game’s underlying linearity. A more seamless integration of natural blockers – like fallen furniture, lighting cues, or character narration explaining the hesitance – could have maintained immersion without sacrificing narrative pacing, but overall I liked how the flow of exploration through the house was directed naturally by the narration The Finch house itself functions as what Henry Jenkins calls an embedded narrative space, where the environment is saturated with story. Each room is a kind of “memory capsule,” sealed and curated to preserve the emotional residue of the character it belonged to. This spatial storytelling not only grounds the player in the Finch family’s reality but also transforms the act of walking into a form of reading. You’re not just moving through a house, you’re moving through a layered narrative structure, one that unfolds through spatial design as much as through dialogue or plot.
Furthermore, compared to other walking simulators like Gone Home or Dear Esther, What Remains of Edith Finch stands out in how it uses movement to evoke emotional shifts. Each family member’s story is experienced through a completely different mechanic or visual style, from a comic-book-like horror portrayal to the deeply haunting, monotonous rhythm of Lewis’s cannery daydream. These changes keep the “walking” from ever feeling monotonous. Instead of simply moving through static environments, the player is transported into different minds and perspectives, each with its own rhythm and metaphor. Unlike Gone Home, which builds emotional tension through environmental clues and hidden documents, Edith Finch uses walking not just as movement, but as transformation – the way you walk changes depending on whose story you’re inhabiting. This is a clever design choice that elevates the medium, showing that “walking” can be an active narrative device, not just a passive one.
(Edith when she was Molly)
Referring to the ethics question, while many mainstream video games rely on violence to drive engagement or resolve conflict, What Remains of Edith Finch forgoes combat entirely, instead choosing quiet introspection as its central mechanic. As a walking simulator, the game unfolds through exploration and fragmented memories, often centered around death, but not in a way that glorifies violence, feels scary, or offers players control over it. In fact, the game’s power lies in its refusal to gamify tragedy. We witness the slow, surreal unraveling of lives through evocative descriptions that are often poetic, eerie, or unsettling, but never exploitative or scary. This absence of direct violence, paired with a focus on storytelling and immersion, fosters a deeper emotional and ethical engagement. The deaths feel personal, complex, and uncomfortably human, rather than the abstract consequences of a weapon or a win condition.
Playing What Remains of Edith Finch challenged my assumptions about what makes a game compelling. In violent games, moral choices often feel binary and performative: you’re either rewarded or punished, and the “ethical” path is usually telegraphed. In contrast, this game presents loss and mortality as inevitable, not as something to conquer – you just have to go along with it, which made facing the loss and mortality less intimidating. It reframed my ethical perspective by asking not, “Did you make the right decision?” but instead, “Can you sit with this story? What am I learning from this?” That quiet demand for empathy, without offering a fix or a fight, was a powerful ethical provocation, one I felt far more deeply than any kill-or-save mechanic in other games.
