ESSENCE

Review

I can’t remember this place; it looks absolutely beautiful with tiny lights everywhere and incredible architecture. What an intriguing place. It’s calling me . . .   I have to explore this abstract world . . . is it a dream or just an essence?

Essence is an exploration game or walking simulator, as it’s commonly known, and can be played on a monitor and soon using a Virtual Reality Headset.

At the start of the game, you will find yourself in a location that looks very similar to Stone Henge.  The world will be presented in monochrome and as you look around, a bright hexagon light will catch will catch your eye. This light is a spirit and will show you the direction to follow as you’ll not have the luxury of a map in this game. Walking simulation games usually have some sort of puzzles attached to them; this one has a few light-ish puzzles, but in the main it is an exploration game. 

As this game is currently on early access, you’ll be able to explore two main worlds. Each of these worlds will have doors to open to move onto the next phase. To open these doors, you’ll need to find black diamonds – there’ll be three in each world. However, when you reach one of the diamonds, you’ll be projected to, as I call, it a sub-world, that you will have to navigate through until your find the portal to come back to the main world.

As you go through the worlds, you’ll come across white life-sized statues, and some will have white shiny orbs on their hands which you can activate. Then you’ll be given a short narrative; to be honest with you, it’s pretty vague! I think this Essence needs more narrative or description within the game so you feel more compelled to it.

The graphics are absolutely breathtaking and I can’t wait to replay this game in VR; I think it will be sensational. The atmosphere, including the sound, is superb. Just bear in mind this is purely an exploration game, so if you’re looking for puzzles, it’s not going to cut it for you. For me the experience was satisfying, and I think it will be even better when the VR will be available; it is ideal for a VR experience. In terms of the controls, they are a combination of mouse and keyboard, as you would expect, and they work fine.