What Remains of Edith Finch
I did a good job of coming into Edith Finch as un-spoiled as I could, but I still thought I had a pretty good idea of what the game was about. As it turns out, I was far more un-spoiled than I realized. I was initially drawn to it by the fascinatingly unique collage of gameplay styles and hadn't paid much attention to any mention of the story. However, that is absolutely the most important part of this game, and all the little gameplay shakeups in between just serve to amplify that narrative even further. As heartbreaking as it was, I was so engrossed in understanding the story of the Finch family that I could hardly put this game down.
What Remains of Edith Finch puts you in control of the titular Edith Finch as she returns to her abandoned family home in search of answers. As the last remaining Finch, she wants to understand and document the stories of her eclectic kin by exploring a home that was largely blocked off to her while she was growing up. Throughout the house, she'll find the rooms of each of her late family members, left untouched since their passing save for a little shrine left in memoriam. It's via these shrines that both the focal point of the story and the game's gimmick are revealed.
While it is left unexplained whether the Finch family has supernatural experiences or their imaginations are just incredibly strong, the effect is the same. Whenever Edith begins to read about her deceased family members, the player leaves her behind and enters the story she's reading. Each of these instances is marked by a fundamental shift in the gameplay, controls, and/or atmosphere, allowing you to experience the intriguing, yet morbidly depressing, circumstances surrounding the individual's death. It's still unclear to me to what degree these glimpses were embellished, either by their authors or by Edith's own imagination, but they led me more and more to believe in the Finch family curse. No matter how hard they tried to survive and thrive, they'd each face an unexpected end, cutting their lives short and leaving their family to try and pick up the pieces.
Despite the pervasive melancholy tone, What Remains of Edith Finch is an undeniably beautiful story. It may seem like it's all about death, but I'd argue it's actually about love. While each of the dreamlike sequences is about the last moments of one of the Finch family members, the rest of the game focuses on how the family responded to their loss. No matter how familiar they become with losing the people close to them, it is clear that they never get used to it. This is where the emotional literacy of the development team becomes so clear. I'm blessed to have lost very few of my close family members at this point in my life, yet the pain that Edith describes and the evidence of coping with trauma seen within the house felt hauntingly familiar. However, the feelings of pain and sadness built up through the narrative were all laced with a dim sense of hope.
Edith didn't come back to the Finch family home to wallow in memories and truths that she already knew would be hard to face. She came back to document her family's history so that they could be remembered and honored, and so that she could have the strength to face her next great adventure. While I managed to piece together the clues pretty early on about how the game might end, it still hit me pretty hard. This is a difficult game to recommend, thanks to the dark tone, but it was an incredible experience. Early on in my playthrough, I desperately wanted to share it with my wife, but some of the later scenes would probably have been too difficult for her, so I slowly began to change my mind. I hope to find someone to share Edith Finch with someday though, because this game is profoundly beautiful.
