The moment I finished Return to Grace, I fought the urge to dive back in and play it again. It wouldn’t have taken me very long – it only takes three hours, the perfect length for a post-work gaming session – and it was clear that playing differently would unlock a different ending. Mine was poignant, thought-provoking, and bittersweet, but I wanted to know what would’ve happened if I had taken more risks or chosen the easier, faster solution when presented with two options. The beauty of Return to Grace is that the story is compelling enough that I wouldn’t have minded immediately reliving it. In fact, its narrative tides it through many of its less refined moments.
Return to Grace is a surprisingly polished sci-fi narrative game where players follow archaeologist Adie Ito in the year 3820 AD. Adie’s life work is investigating Grace, an artificial intelligence that ushered in humanity’s golden age but mysteriously went dark 900 years ago. The game opens with Adie crash-landing on Ganymede, where Grace is located, in an attempt to get to the bottom of a single question: what happened to Grace? Adie makes her way through a retro-futuristic super-structure, accompanied by a cast of AIs who help her and hinder her along the way.
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These AIs are a huge draw of the game. You wander alone through a gorgeously rendered, almost eerie setting, but you’re never lonely, which is impressive in its own right. When you first enter the structure, you’re helped along by an AI called Logic, who leads you through some initial puzzles while making it clear she doesn’t think very highly of you. Later, you meet Control, an almost zealous presence who wants you to let all of humanity know that you’ve reawakened him, and Empathy, a sweet, hippie dippie type who happily leads you through some breathing exercises. These AIs, and the combinations you make out of them, accompany you on your journey, giving you their own insights and suggestions on the obstacles in your way. They are all subsets of Grace’s own AI, representing different aspects of her.
It could easily be annoying that they’re so chatty, and there were moments in which I wished they would let me figure out a puzzle on my own or that they would at least stop rushing me. Very often, you won’t be able to do an action until your conversation with them runs its course. But every character in this game is incredibly well voice-acted, and I didn’t mind that the action kept getting interrupted by them because I wanted to know what they had to say. The game is extremely well written, unravelling Grace’s story over its short runtime with just the right pacing – I never felt bored or like I was being rushed through the game’s story.
Unfortunately, there really isn’t that much gameplay to be had. Return to Grace is very much story-driven. There are some puzzles, and you may ‘hack’ items around you, but apart from that, there’s not much to do. It’s more a walking simulator than anything, and I don’t mind that at all, but because of your limited abilities, it can get a little repetitive at points.
That didn’t stop me from loving Return to Grace, and it won’t stop me from going back in to see what would happen if I did things differently. A few times, it used my own choices to make a point to me, surprising me by reiterating something I thought was inconsequential in a larger, thematic way. Its meditation on the consequences of a relationship between AI and humans also impressed me with its depth. I don’t want to get into story spoilers, but I thought its representation of AI was a wonderful breath of fresh air, one that didn’t strike fear into my heart ormake me worried about the state of my job. If you like walking simulators, story-driven games, and excellent voice acting, Return to Grace is well worth a shot – very few games make me want to dip back in immediately, just to see what else could happen.
Score: 3.5/5. A game code for PC was provided.
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