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In his chapter ‘Gaming’s Hauntology’ (2014), Christian McCrea argues that the dead in video games are ‘doubly-haunted’ due to being ‘resolutely about what they are not, or are no longer’ (p. The often minimal interactivity required from a player and the absence of a clear win-state has meant that such titles sit quite awkwardly within video games, leading to alternative and additional forms of categorisation which borrow from other mediums (such as ‘story-led games’ and ‘art games’).

Rapture is one of many games, derogatorily dubbed ‘walking simulators’, which often utilises a vacant landscape for players to assemble the fragments of its narrative for themselves (Dear Esther, 2012 The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, 2014 Ether One, 2014 Gone Home, 2016 What Remains of Edith Finch, 2017). As its title implies, everyone has vanished and it is up to the player to piece together the events that led to this mass disappearance of the village’s occupants. In Chinese Room’s Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture (2015), the player walks through the sleepy fictional village of Yaughton in Shropshire. As the player attempts to give presence to past events, they invariably emphasise their own inescapable spectral role. I’m the only one left.' In this paper, I argue that the often lack of interactivity and slower pace found within walking simulators is what accelerates the ‘doubly-haunted’ quality of the dead in video games (McCrea, 2014, p.

I don’t know if anyone will ever hear this. Uncover the traces of the vanished community discover fragments of events and memories to piece together the mystery of the apocalypse.įeaturing a beautiful, detailed open-world and a haunting soundtrack, Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture is non-linear storytelling at its best.'This is Dr Katherine Collins. Immerse yourself in a rich, deep adventure from award-winning developer The Chinese Room and investigate the last days of Yaughton Valley.

And someone remains behind, to try and unravel the mystery. Above it all, the telescopes of the Observatory point out at dead stars and endless darkness. The televisions are tuned to vacant channels. Strange voices haunt the radio waves as uncollected washing hangs listlessly on the line. Down on Appleton’s farm, crops rustle untended. Toys lie forgotten in the playground, the wind blows quarantine leaflets around the silent churchyard. 06:37am 6th June 1984.ĭeep within the Shropshire countryside, the village of Yaughton stands empty.

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