Item: WHAT REMAINS OF EDITH FINCH
Rating: 5

“If we lived forever, maybe we’d have time to understand things. But as it is, I think the best we can do is try to open our eyes and appreciate how strange and brief all of this is.”

If Mike Flanagan were to make a video game, I imagine it would look a lot like WHAT REMAINS OF EDITH FINCH. It opens as a cursed, haunted-house story built from several interlocking tales, and beneath the empty hallways lies a profound exploration of love, loss, and grief that makes it one of the best story-driven walking narratives of all time.

Since this is our Halloween edition, I’ll share small spoilers about the mechanism that moves the game’s plot forward, so if you want to go in blind, stop reading now. You’ve been warned. 👻

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In WHAT REMAINS OF EDITH FINCH, you will die. A lot. The game has players relive the deaths of each member of the Finch family in first person, with a new narrator for each passing. What makes it so powerful is that the ‘curse’ works as a metaphor for generational trauma. You, the player, get to relive the tragic, preventable accidents of several characters who couldn’t accept their mortality. And by doing so, that obsession with death and the ‘curse’ eventually led to their demise.

Like most walking narratives, the 90-plus-minute game gives players little control over what plays out, because the point is to experience the lived-in deaths of each Finch.

The highlight deaths are:

Lewis: This is one of the most brilliant examples of how to turn mundane gameplay into something so much more, because with one hand I cut fish heads, and with the other I built a fantasy world as a king. I’ve never seen a story told like this, and it’s a devastating cautionary tale about letting your imaginary world become more important than your reality.
Gregory: This short vignette will scar any parent for the rest of their life. It’s tragic, and until my lil’ one could swim, it kept me in the room any time he was in the bathroom. It also captures a parent’s desire to see the imaginary world inside a baby’s head.
Molly: Her journey through a series of creature transformations plays out as a metaphor for something much darker, and it left me choked up.
Barbara: A horrifying comic book comes to life, narrated by a voice that sounds like a nasally Crypt Keeper from TALES FROM THE CRYPT. The style and gameplay soar, but the narrator pulls players out of it.
Sam: A warning about how chasing the perfect picture can make you miss what’s happening in real life.

Several more sections round out the game, each one beautifully told, and the climax is so picture-perfect that players will want to jump right back in and relive every death to understand what each one means.

Final Thought: If I lived forever, maybe I’d have time to understand everything in WHAT REMAINS OF EDITH FINCH. It’s a classic Halloween story where the surface horror holds a much deeper meaning, and one that gamers, horror fans, and even people who never pick up a controller should experience.

It’s available on most platforms – I replayed it on the PS5.