Those Who Remain

Over the course of Those Who Remain, the player should feel a strong bond with lead character Edward. His dialog often acts as a sort of catharsis for players, his words expressing similar thoughts racing through players’ heads. Many play horror games to be swept up in tense, fearful situations and allow a rush of adrenaline to spike them through breathless chases and eerie moments. A lead character who remains faceless is a common tool, used to place ourselves into the shaking hands and trembling boots of whatever poor bastard has ended up in this less than ideal situation.

Edward, however, offers a different kind of connection to the player, one less than ideal. Those Who Remain is often an exercise in frustration, one that tasks players with solving rudimentary puzzles while placing them in situations meant to give the allure of terror. All the while Edward, much like the player, bemoans his plight of being stuck in the sleepy, dark town of Dormont, forced to make hollow choices and annoyed at being haunted by “spooky” creatures.

Those Who Remain begins with Edward mourning the disintegration of his family, talking to the player while holding a photograph in one hand and a glass of alcohol in the other. He replaces the glass with a gun also sitting on the table. Edward is not doing great. And he begins his journey in hopes of driving to a motel to call things off with his mistress.

The scene shifts to Edward driving up to the motel, a few cars are in the parking lot but for all purposes, it’s a ghost town. The player must piece together the woman’s location by checking for her name at the front desk where no bell or amount of throwing around random furniture and items seems to summon any other human.

I felt pretty stupid after “solving” the first “puzzle” of Those Who Remain. In a matter of seconds I figured out what room I needed to find, only to have it locked. Okay, there must be a key somewhere hidden near the front desk. Nope, nothing. I spent the next few minutes running past every door of the building to see if they randomly opened. Nothing. Right next to the door I needed to open there was a weird drawing that looked like a smiley face. Trying to interact with it resulted in nothing.

The key was under the doormat in front of the door.

Yes, the solution was that painfully obvious. But let’s try to figure out where my head was at. In what world do a woman and a man involved in a seedy motel tryst decide that they will meet at an isolated location and hide the key under a doormat where anyone can get it. It was possibly a bit premature to assume I could simply go to the front desk to find her name and room number only to find the door unlocked.

Then there is the larger problem with Those Who Remain‘s gameplay. As a first-person horror game in a post-P.T. and Amnesia world, there’s a tendency for developers to tuck subtle clues away in odd locations or merely hide them in one of several closets or drawers or lockers. Those Who Remain chooses to let players pick up a baffling number of detritus from the game world that serves virtually no purpose other than to have it be an option.

There are many posters and pieces of art slapped onto walls that are obvious nods and influences for developer Camel 101. Like many of these smaller titles, I understand the appeal of placing a familiar face onto a wanted poster in a police station or using a family photo in the game. But often, they took me out of the moment the game was desperately trying to have me cling onto. Near the end of the game when the drama is unfolding, I saw a pixelated picture of Dave Navarro being used as a poster in a teenager’s room but with a different name covering it. I couldn’t help but laugh.

Whether copied and pasted or original, these assets are found multiple times throughout the game’s several locations and usually fit the theme but ultimately serve no purpose. Rooms will be littered with chairs, boxes, computers, books, and dozens of other things. When searching for that motel key I upturned every object I could in the side room at the front desk and opened every drawer. Obviously my efforts were in vain.

Eventually, I gave up on similar attempts of deep thought because in Those Who Remain, those efforts bear little fruit.

Edward’s car soon mysteriously drives off when his objective is nowhere to be found. He gives chase only to find his car in flames on the side of a road near a sign pointing to the direction of a town called Dormont. Moments prior, a mysterious voice exclaimed something about “the light” and the safety inside of it and the dangers outside of it.

You see, Dormont is a town with some problems. The main one being that in the shadows groups of ink-black strangers with glowing blue eyes will kill anyone who comes close. These shadow villagers hold pitchforks and machetes and all sorts of pointed objects. Here the crux of the game reveals itself: do everything possible to stay in the light. It’s an interesting concept, one that has been tried a few times to great success and one that barely lives up to any kind of standard in Those Who Remain.

The game’s second cluster of puzzles is more or less indicative of how a large portion of the game will play out. A small farmhouse that is unsurprisingly empty is the next wall to impede progression. Upon opening the door players will see it is dark and infested with these spooky beings who don’t budge an inch. Looking around players will notice a light switch that illuminates one room, progressing in this cramped house room by room by turning on light after light. But eventually, there’s nothing to do and when turning around, the front door is gone. Players are then forced outside and around the house where a basketball suddenly drops out of the sky, causing Edward to gasp in terror despite not seemingly being that scary. There’s a field with farm lights that can allow Edward to progress but they aren’t on. There’s a barn that can be entered but first, be sure to open the door all the way so a shaft of light will pierce the shadows preventing you from interacting with the generator that will turn on the lights in the field. Sadly, the generator won’t come on and a fuse is needed which can be found in the basement of the house. Find the fuse, turn on the generator, and move on to the next area.

If that sequence of events tantalizes you, then Those Who Remain will likely hold your attention for the five or so hours a somewhat careful, confused playthrough might require. At first, I found myself interested in the general flow of the game, solving mild environmental puzzles to light up the darkness while doing a bit of exploring to find whatever missing piece of a puzzle was needed. The issue is that Those Who Remain asks so little of the players beyond this, or merely throws extra steps in to delay an inevitable solution.

My interest and patience began to wear thin after a series of deaths that ran the gamut from accidental to intentional to preventable. Turning on light switches is perhaps one of the most common reasons why I died. By default, Those Who Remain has its aiming sensitivity turned very low, meaning that it takes a lot of effort to move Edward’s line of sight right on the object players want him to interact with. Though he can run like the wind–a small triumph–it’s disorienting to try and move at a rapid pace while the camera sluggishly hovers over the right spot. But I understand why movement was this slow. Often players have to hover the “tiny white dot of interaction” over an extremely small surface area in hopes the game registers it as a potential interaction. Rather than using the entire panel as a point, players will usually have to target the switch. Sure, they are usually lit up red but often they are also in the dark. And remember what’s in the dark?

So many times I would carefully inch my way into a room to position myself to be bathed in light only to find that I couldn’t interact with the lights. Not only does dying this way feel ridiculous, it is entirely preventable. While I can tolerate death leading to a slap on the wrist, in Those Who Remain it becomes a punishing, exhausting roadblock. The game features a very poor checkpoint system that usually only triggers after something “big” happens. This could mean moving on to a new area or being teleported to a secondary dimension that players will often step into.

Take, for example, the part that came directly after the farm. After a pseudo dream sequence where Edward sees some horrifying imagery, he is transported to a gas station. To progress he needs to get inside the gas station but can’t turn on a car that would flood an entrance with light. After wandering around, a doorway bathed with blue light suddenly appears at a house across the street, an event seemingly triggered by the player searching for a solution, turning away after finding none, and then turning back around. Walking into the light brings Edward back to the gas station but now, objects are floating in mid-air and the car is covered with vines that can be killed with a weed killer that happens to just be laying on the ground. It would also be wise to move a wood pallet that is suddenly weightless because it will be moved when you return to “reality.”

After undergoing more sequences of turning on lights I was able to progress after finding a lighter. I was treated to a cutscene where a young girl began to talk to me and then everything freaked out. Cars flew up and the ground shook and I stood around in awe watching the sequence. Apparently I was supposed to run because an evil being was chasing me. My camera turned around and I saw a grisly female figure vibrating its head at me in a very Kojima fashion. Oh well, no major loss.

Except it was.

There I was, standing right back at the gas station, Edward repeating the dialog he did when he first arrived. I had to do everything all over again. So I did. That was until I died again unceremoniously when trying to turn on a light and had to do it all over again. On one hand, these absurd checkpoints feel like a slap in the face. Those Who Remain has near agonizing load times, treating players to a random quote about the devil or monsters with a still image whose quality is so poor I have to believe it is intentional.

Worse, though, is that having to repeat puzzles in Those Who Remain from the beginning after having solved them shows how thin the game is. Players should be able to “solve” most obstacles in under a few minutes after doing them the first time because most of the game is about getting from Point A to Point B with as little thought as possible. The game relies on players haphazardly looking for a sole object that will allow progression. Often it won’t be painfully obvious until you’ve sorted through every last shelf or piece of garbage. There’s truly no reason that Camel 101 needed to make all these objects things you could pick up, it serves a purpose less than a handful of times to conceal a note or object. I also found it extremely strange that despite my progression in a puzzle not being saved, objects I had thrown on the floor often remained in the same place. What exactly allowed for the game’s memory to retain that information but not the fact that I had already found a headlight for a tractor?

More times than I’m willing to admit, I ran across entire sections just grasping at straws trying to find an object in an obvious location only to find it on a shelf behind a box I needed to interact with. And because the game rarely communicates when actual rummaging around is encouraged, players shouldn’t feel the need to do so. Only a few times do players find themselves manipulating light in any meaningful way to allow for progression.

Silent Hill, a game Those Who Remain has so obviously pulled from, managed to have complex puzzles that forced players to think out solutions while possibly using clues or objects from the world. The farthest this game goes is to maybe ask players if they can count while avoiding the gaze of grotesque creatures. At one point players will need to run around a maze grabbing lion statues hoping a towering sludge monster won’t see them. A specific number of statues must be put on a platform indicated by the number of candles on the platform. What? Why? It makes no sense. As does a puzzle asking players to count the number of sides on shapes or reminding you a character died at the age of 13 and trying to figure out if you’re supposed to light two candles saying “1” and “3” or finding two candles that total up to 13 while avoiding a monster that will force you to reset the entire ordeal.

One frustrating puzzle has players shifting back and forth between the game’s two realities for whatever reason only to be forced to bring oil barrels across a long hallway onto pressure plates. But whenever reality shifts, Edward drops the barrel and must pick it up again, which caused me just to throw the damn things to make it happen faster. Puzzles in the game don’t feel natural, instead just placed at the end of a hallway or room. This isn’t the Spencer Mansion and often I didn’t care to take the time to understand if symbolism accounted for the bizarre puzzles.

It truly is a shame that the bulk of Those Who Remain is built upon frustration. The puzzles and their solutions here are so bland and cookie-cutter that the little feeling of reward for solving them eliminates any desire to do so. Frequently I could feel the specter of Alan Wake, Resident Evil, Layers of Fear, Silent Hill, and more. Because I’ve played so many similar games, I could see where the plot was going. Edward’s guilt, the symbolism of some of the creatures who haunt him, the murder mystery at the center of Dormont, it was all telegraphed or explained away.

Sparse flashes of something unique occur in Those Who Remain but are often stifled by poor decisions. There’s no explanation to some of the monsters and maybe that’s for the best. But the fleshy, naked monster with a light for a head being a symbol of Edward’s guilt makes me scratch my head, much like the otherworldly, overgrown alternate dimension. At several junctions, players will be asked to determine the fate of a person who is responsible for the death of the girl at the center of the story. By scouring even more closets and dressers for notes, players can read documents that outline why a character acted the way they did. When enough evidence is gathered, a masked figure trying their best Malcolm McDowell impression asks players to forgive or condemn the accused.

These decisions affect the outcome of Those Who Remain‘s ending. It’s a concept rarely used in games like this, which usually often have little to no choice in their narrative. However, even something seemingly interesting is hampered by one trope or another. Edward out loud will express his exhaustion and frustration at having to make these choices again or being tormented by the evils of the town again. Eventually, the player is along for the ride, wondering why their heart should be in it if the character they are playing as also can’t invest.

Perhaps the greatest sin of Those Who Remain isn’t that it is frustrating, or poorly designed, or doesn’t take advantage of a promising concept. Honestly, it’s just not scary or unsettling or whatever adjective the developers were hoping for or grasping at. Much of the game feels tired in execution. A world full of glitches, horror tropes, and muddy visuals won’t engage a player looking for tension. Even the imposing, shadowy antagonists lose their teeth when you realize they aren’t shadows. After getting tired of how dark the game was, I dialed up the brightness only to find that the shadows looked like people wearing full-body leather suits. From then on, I couldn’t help but think Edward was being harassed by a town of evil gimp suits. Even worse, I just wondered why out of all the objects I could grab, not one of them was a light source that could be moved.

Those Who Remain never challenged me to shake that ridiculous image from my head. Time and again it plunged me deeper into a world that I wished was more interesting, not one that crumbled with mediocrity. This is a game that often feels completely out of its depth, striving to be more complicated than it actually is capable of being. Not even its jump scares managed to alter the course of my heart rate. But even without the frequent issues, players will, like Edward, still be hopelessly searching for a way out.