Developed by The End of the Sun Team and produced by Jakub Machowski and The End of the Sun Team, The End of the Sun is a first-person, story-driven mystery adventure set in a Slavic fantasy world.
A few days ago, I asked myself, “It has been a while since I played any game that could be considered a walking simulator.” I wondered what one would feel like after such walking sim celibacy. Then I started playing The End of the Sun. Frustrated, enraged, annoyed…. These are some words that mean someone is not happy. Let’s talk!
Pointless Puzzles
I get that hearing the words, walking simulator, gives the impression of doing nothing but walking and looking at pretty surroundings for a few hours, but trust me, there is more to the formula.
Whether that be horror, comedy or, as we will discuss here, Puzzles, if you don’t put in the proper amount of effort in this crumble, no one will want a bite.
Contrary to the bottom-licking reviews on the Steam page, The End of the Sun does not have any good puzzles.
Majority of The End of the Sun consists of watching cutscenes. They end in some tragedy or error due to a missing object. The “puzzle” is simply going out to find this missing object and placing it in the required location. The first few times, it does not hurt, but after the 5th or 6th time, it just gets lazy and annoying.
If you want to make a movie, just make a movie; no need to attach a half-assed game to it.
Speaking of which:
A Cliché. Plot
The story being told is not exactly Shakespeare; it’s more cliché.-spear….
Uhm… while trying not to spoil, I can say that the game in itself is filled to the brim with cliches and scenes that feel plucked from other media.
Imagine a story about a devoted cult gathering at an Island for some secret ritual, and you might already know 90% of this game’s plot.
A woman gets impregnated with some otherworldly being. CHECK!
A godly figure is angry and is causing bad things to happen. CHECK!
A thing I won’t say cause it will spoil the plot, CHECK!
However, I will say that the Final 10%, felt original. It managed to entertain me a little.
You play from a first-person perspective on a seemingly desolate island, scattered with eerie remnants of a cult’s presence. With the ability to see into the past, Return of the Obra Dinn style, you piece together the mystery of the Island. The concept, though riddled with flaws, does manage to give The End of the Sun a unique charm and atmosphere. The moments when the past reveals itself through ghostly visions provide a glimmer of intrigue, offering just enough to pull you in.
Sadly, the shortcomings of the rest pull you back out.
The End of my Rope
You will spend all your time trekking through a large open world, fetching meaningless objects just to shove them into yet another predetermined spot. Gets old faster than you can say “cliché.”
The few moments where the game shows any spark of originality are buried under a predictable story and lacklustre execution.
It’s a walking simulator with no soul, a puzzle game with no challenge.
If you want to spend hours wandering an empty island trying to piece together a story that honestly should have been a movie or a short film, then sure, The End of the Sun might scratch that itch. But for me, this is a hard pass.
