Draugen game review5/18/2023 ![]() Tantalising as that might be in many other situations, to be honest, maybe it’s better for them to stay lost in the fjords. All we get is a dubious assurance: “Edward and Alice will return.” There are no subtle revelations one could miss, no alternate endings, no new game plus, no post-credits twist. I was desperate enough to play it a second time, not because of a lingering fascination with its mystery, but simply because I was convinced I must have missed something. The only question I was left with in the end wasn’t about some intriguing aspect of its story, but simply: “Was that it?” Alas, it was. The intriguing premise, the wonderful setting, the entertaining writing, the haunting soundtrack all of it is squashed beyond recognition by what is the narrative equivalent of witnessing a car smash head-on into a concrete wall in slow motion. It’s impossible to convey just how egregious a misstep Draugen commits without spoiling the end of the game. And if the game doesn’t take its own mystery seriously, who could expect players to? There won’t be a convenient series of clues leading to a tidy resolution.” It feels like the makers are winking at us, but they don’t seem to understand that there’s a giant gulf between having no “tidy resolution” and essentially burning the whole house of cards to the ground.ĭraugen willfully takes away every single reason why we’d care about the events of the game in the first place, and as a result, feels like a mockery of our investment of time and intellectual energy. In one especially awkward example, Edward rebukes Lissie by saying: “This is real life, not a whodunit by Agatha Christie. It was pleasant to look at and was doing its job just fine, so why take it away? It’s a rug better left unpulled. In Draugen, there’s simply nothing beneath the intricately patterned rug but naked floorboards. Its narrative twists don’t intrigue, but simply reveal the artifice and meaninglessness of the mystery.Ī good twist in a mystery story is like having the rug pulled from under our feet, only to discover a previously hidden trap door that opens entirely new avenues of intrigue. ![]() For that to work, there’d need to be a foundation of tantalising and meaningful clues to work with.ĭraugen takes that away by revealing to us that all the clues or “breadcrumbs” (as Edward calls them) we’ve been following for several hours are essentially nothing but red herrings on top of more red herrings. By this, I don’t mean that it ends with a pleasurable kind of ambiguity that allows us to speculate (Lissie-style) or come to our own conclusions. Draugen seems to be aware of the problem and circumnavigates the danger of a bad resolution by deciding to have no resolution at all. Sadly, Draugen is a mystery game, and the thing with mysteries is that an unsatisfying resolution can retroactively spoil even the most enjoyable experience. When she isn’t quipping or poking fun at the Old Bean for his tiresomeness, she’s dancing around, practising handstands, or climbing trees. Her wild speculations about what might have happened and irreverent yet empathetic character are consistently delightful. Next to Lissie, however, he appears downright dull (he is, in Lissie’s words, “such a pill”. Throughout all of this, we converse with Lissie via a very simple dialogue system that’s less about influencing the way the story plays out and more about illuminating Edward’s thoughts and inner life. We find letters and other documents that hint at a bigger story there’s talk about lost Viking treasure, a terrible murder, a curse, and the Draugen, an undead creature from Scandinavian folklore. Most of the village is open for exploration, but our progression through the story is entirely linear. Here, we begin our search for Betty, and an investigation into what happened to the villagers. It’s gorgeous and eerie all at once its entire population seems to have vanished from the face of the earth, and its picturesque huts and homesteads with old-timey charm lie abandoned in the middle of breathtaking but cold natural beauty.Īvalanches rumble on the summits of distant mountains while the ghostly silhouette of a Nordic church peeks through the mist atop the precipice overlooking the harbour. Nestled against the mountains and the cold shores of the fjord, it makes a big impression despite its humble size. In many ways, Graavik and its surrounding landscape is the third major character of the game.
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