A Little Tenderness

The newest game to be developed by The Chinese Room and Santa Monica Studios, Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture is likely to become the next greatest example where critics can point in the blossoming art medium of gaming. Much like The Chinese Room’s 2008 PC title Dear Esther (spiritual predecessor to Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture), this first-person, story driven adventure game allows players to explore and interact with its world in order to uncover the mysteries surrounding its quiet, abandoned landscape, and to delve into some of the more subtly colored fabrics of humanity. Sounds deep, right? Well it is, but quite like arguments aimed at Dear Esther, it makes us question the definition of “game,” and whether that definition even has a place in modern day entertainment.