A big thank you to ONE-O-ONE Games and Daedalic Entertainment for hooking me up with a copy of their thrilling atmospheric mystery, The Suicide of Rachel Foster.
Warning, there are spoilers ahead.
Onto the game itself, you take on the role of a woman named Nichole who just inherited her late father’s motel located in the mountains of Wyoming. While looking over the property for her lawyer, she becomes trapped due to a snow storm and her only connection to the outside is a cell phone connecting her to a FEMA agent named Irving. While stuck in the hotel, Nichole starts to experience strange events that that centers around the suicide of a teen girl connected to the hotel and Nichole’s past.
When it comes to the game’s controls, there’s no tutorial really, but luckily there’s not really a whole lot you need to remember. The game advises that you use headphones and I’ll admit, it’s worth it! The voice acting is tremendous especially with the actress voicing Nichole! The art of the game helps bring the sounds of an old mountain retreat to life! Also in the game, there are times when you pick what Nichole says next during her conversations with Irving, whether or not they affect the outcome of the game I can’t really say.
When it comes to scares…sorry, it falls flat on it, it’s more suspenseful than anything else and some of the plot elements about whether or not the hotel is haunted in unclear and never really answered as there are conflicting scenes. This is a big disappointment since they did basically paid homage to The Shining by making the carpet almost look like the one from the Overlook Hotel, and nearly copied the bathroom.
When it comes to the main topic of the game, The Suicide of Rachel Foster, surprisingly they don’t really talk about it a whole lot, they talked about her death, and you’re pretty much trying to figure out if she really did kill herself but when it comes to the topic of suicide, it comes across as kind of being glossed over.
Overall, The Suicide of Rachel Foster is a game you can be in a couple of hours like I have since it’s pretty much a walking sim set in a funhouse. If there’s a way I could describe this game, it’s literally Firewatch but it takes place at the Overlook Hotel and I can’t let go of the fact of how much of a copy of Firewatch it is, both games take place in the ’80s, there’s a device connecting you to an unseen character that walks you through tasks, there’s a sense of danger without ever really being in danger, the levels are separated in “DAY (insert number here)”, etc.
just get rid of the little logo and make the font white.
On my scale of 10 stars, The Suicide of Rachel Foster is a 6/10
The game may not have been good but Suicide is worse, if you or someone else is not in the best place emotionally right now and have had thoughts about suicide,
REACH OUT OR CALL 1-800-273-8255 or visit Suicidepreventionlifeline.org
