Spoiler Warning: Major parts of What Remains of Edith Finch will be discussed, including major characters’ deaths. Read at your own risk.
The Finches have a nasty habit of dying young. The deaths are unconventional and sudden, believed to be part of a family curse. For a majority of the game, you play as Edith Finch, one of the few remaining Finches, as she returns to her old family home determined to uncover all of the secrets hidden within.
What Remains of Edith Finch is primarily a first-person exploration game, although its narrative spans across a broad spectrum of genres. Since the primary goal is to investigate the circumstances surrounding various family members’ deaths, the game is very lore heavy, with the cluttered house serving as the perfect setting for environmental storytelling. Each family member’s room is jam-packed with tiny intricate details that provide you with clues about their life and death. The sheer amount of items in each room is almost overwhelming, from each bird cage containing a legible name in Edie’s room to the photographs in Sam’s. There’s plenty of planted items as well, such as the music box that you aren’t able to access until you’ve searched Barbara’s room, where the location of a secret key is revealed. Everything is placed intentionally, and it’s worth playing the game a few additional times to fully understand the subtle connections and Easter eggs.
What Remains of Edith Finch contains a little bit of something for everyone. Horror enthusiasts will enjoy Barbara’s scream queen shenanigans, while those with mental health issues can relate to both Walter and Lewis’s internal struggles. There are heartbreaking tales and absolutely ridiculous ones, like Sam being bucked off a cliff by a deer that miraculously survived a bullet to the heart. But what I really appreciated about the variety of stories is that they allowed the game to tackle issues that aren’t discussed often in entertainment. Walter has agoraphobia, refusing to leave the house’s underground bunker. While this is a condition that’s often used for comedy in various movies and TV shows, the game doesn’t make fun of Walter’s reasoning and instead makes the player empathize with him, as he’d been traumatized by witnessing Barbara’s death. Gregory was a toddler who was left unattended in a bathtub, with his death resulting in his parent’s divorce. Many couples end up splitting after losing a child, and watching how Gregory’s death affected his loved ones made his death even more impactful.
Paired with individual mini-games and narration, the sections serve as separate short stories that weave a web of mystery that isn’t necessarily solved when all is said and done. While you receive beautifully rendered visual representations of each story, they’re not without bias. Remember, this is a supposed family curse, perpetuated by Edie’s memorialization of each death with an elaborate shrine in every room. These tales are warped by the imagination, by the fantastical nature of the stories themselves. For example, Molly’s death involves her turning into various animals before finally transforming into a monster that she claims is coming to eat her. We don’t actually believe that Molly was eaten by a creature beneath her bed. Further research outside of the game suggests that she actually died from eating fluoride toothpaste and holly berries, which are indeed ingested during the early portions of her mini-game. It raises the question of whether the family is indeed cursed or if their belief in the curse is somehow contributing to their demise in a twisted self-fulfilling prophecy.
The only thing that players may dislike about the game is that it lacks any significant choices. Other than the order of the rooms you choose to explore, there’s not much autonomy in the game. The family members are already dead, leaving you helpless as you watch each demise. This lack of significant choice also affects the game’s replay value. While you can return to each story via the decision tree that is filled out during your initial playthrough, you may find it redundant, as nothing changes during the replay except your understanding of what’s already predestined to occur.
What Remains of Edith Finch is an intriguing compilation of stories that will leave you questioning what is real and what is merely exaggerated storytelling. If you love delving into complex lore and formulating theories, then this is the game for you. However, if you want to have greater autonomy and affect the story’s outcome, then you may want to look elsewhere.