Everybody's Gone to the Rapture

Everybody's Gone to the Rapture
Official game logo
Developer(s)	The Chinese Room SCE Santa Monica Studio
Publisher(s)	Sony Computer Entertainment
Director(s)	Jessica Curry
Designer(s)	Andrew Crawshaw
Writer(s)	Dan Pinchbeck
Composer(s)	Jessica Curry
Engine	CryEngine
Platform(s)	PlayStation 4[1]
Release date(s)	PlayStation 4 WW August 11, 2015[2]
Genre(s)	Adventure
Mode(s)	Single-player

Everybody's Gone to the Rapture is a first-person adventure video game developed by The Chinese Room and SCE Santa Monica Studio.^[3] It is a story-based game, taking place in a small English village whose inhabitants have mysteriously disappeared. It is considered a spiritual successor to Dear Esther.^[4] It was published by Sony Computer Entertainment and released for the PlayStation 4.

Gameplay

In Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, the player explores a small English town whose inhabitants have mysteriously disappeared. The player can interact with floating lights throughout the world, most of which can reveal parts of the story. The player can also interact with manmade objects, such as doors and radios.

Plot

The game begins with the player standing near a gate to an observatory, with a voiceover stating, “This is Dr. Katherine Collins. I don't know if anyone will hear this. It's all over. I'm the only one left.”

It soon becomes clear that the player is in a fictional deserted village named Yaughton in Shropshire, England, and must discover how everybody went missing. Mysterious floating balls of light swim around the air which lead the player or morph into human shapes to depict various events in the village, all of which depict the lead-up to the events which caused the ‘rapture’.

There are five 'areas' in the game, each of which revolve around a different character, with the main protagonists being Dr Katherine Collins (Kate) and her husband, Stephen – both scientists at the observatory. During their work, Kate and Stephen encountered a ‘strange pattern’ which appeared to be an unknown form of life. They observed the pattern ‘infecting’ and sometimes killing other lifeforms. Kate concluded that the pattern was attempting to communicate with humans, ignorant to the harm that it was causing during her attempts to communicate with it. During this time, Stephen becomes convinced that the pattern is a deadly threat capable of destroying the human race.

This pattern spread beyond the observatory and infected the people and animals of the village. According to a recording of a local doctor, the symptoms were consistent with a brain tumour which caused cranial pressure leading to bleeding and ultimately their deaths. However, the doctor cannot explain the motes of light he detects within the blood.

The pattern appears to be infectious by contact only at first, but as the story progresses we discover that Stephen believes it has learnt to adapt and can travel/infect via the telephone, then computers, and finally by radio waves.

Concerned that the pattern will spread further than the village, Stephen urges the local government to quarantine the area. Many of the villagers discuss people 'disappearing’. Dead birds can often be seen lying on the ground. It is hinted in a conversation in the fourth area, in which Rachel states that there is dust all over Mrs Denton's chalet, that the people who disappeared actually suffered from spontaneous human combustion.

During the game, the player can find bomb casings in various areas. We later learn that when Stephen urged the local government to quarantine the area, the government decided to ‘gas’ the village to contain the threat but it did not work.

In the bunker, Stephen states that the pattern has left the valley and spread all over. The pattern comes for him and he confronts it. He tells it that he has decided to set fire to himself, having doused himself in petrol, to prevent being taken (or fed on) by it. However, before he can do so he says 'Kate?' as if having heard a voice. The scene fades leaving us to wonder if the pattern took him and as to whether he joined Kate somewhere inside the pattern.

The final part of the game sees Kate in the observatory making the recordings you hear throughout the game. She seems resigned to her fate. She turns and appears to reach out to the pattern as it reaches out to meet her.

Characters

There are many minor characters in the game, but the main plot revolves around six main characters.

• Dr Katherine Collins - An African-American scientist at the observatory who was one of the scientists who discovered the 'light patterns'. She is the first person heard in the game's intro, and the last person to survive the infection. She is married to Dr Stephen Appleton; she chooses to retain her own name.
• Dr Stephen Appleton Boyles - A scientist born and raised in Yaughton. He is having an affair with former long-time girlfriend Liz Graves who is now married to Robert Graves.
• Jeremy Wheeler - The local priest or vicar. Listed on front of church as Rector.
• Liz Graves - Owner of the lakeside campsite, and Stephen's ex-fiancee. After an accident, she now suffers from a hip ailment (which requires her to walk with crutches).
• Wendy Appleton Boyles - Stephen's mother. A known busybody around town, she is quick to gossip and judge others. She disapproved of her son's relationship with a black woman, Kate, and was partially responsible for his reconciliation with Liz.
• Frank Appleton - Owner of Appleton Farms, a large wheat farm. His wife Mary is recently deceased. His estranged sister is Wendy, making him Stephen's uncle.

Development

During the development of Dear Esther, the team wanted to introduce interactive elements. When this proved to be impractical, the concept of Everybody's Gone to the Rapture was born.^[4] Unlike Dear Esther before it, Everybody's Gone to the Rapture will not appear on PCs, instead being a PlayStation exclusive. The team made the decision to partner with Sony as they felt they could not raise enough money for the project through crowd funding sources or through sales of alpha versions.^[5][6]

The developers were inspired by British apocalyptic science fiction of the 1960s and 1970s, like John Christopher's The Death of Grass and A Wrinkle in the Skin, John Wyndham's The Day of the Triffids and Charles Eric Maine's The Tide Went Out.^[7]

The game's soundtrack composed by Jessica Curry was published by Sony Classical as a 28-track album in Britain.

Reception

Everybody's Gone to the Rapture received positive reviews. It received an aggregated score of 80.43% on GameRankings based on 51 reviews^[8] and 78/100 on Metacritic based on 81 reviews.^[9]

Some reviewers criticized what was perceived as too little interactivity from the player. Jim Sterling, while analysing games often derided as "walking simulators", said that Rapture is a model of what not to do in this genre, such as by not shifting the tone of the game as it progresses, and by making the backstory more interesting than the game itself. He also unfavourably compared it to Gone Home and The Stanley Parable. ^[10] Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw of The Escapist called it the 4th blandest game of 2015, saying that it deserves the title of "walking simulator", and for how little it did to evolve the interactive story genre, comparing it unfavourably to The Stanley Parable as well.^[11]

References

External links

• Official website
• Everybody's Gone to the Rapture at MusicBrainz (list of releases)