''The Vanishing of Ethan Carter'' is a 2014 horror
adventure
An adventure is an exciting experience or undertaking that is typically bold, sometimes risky. Adventures may be activities with danger such as traveling, exploring, skydiving, mountain climbing, scuba diving, river rafting, or other extreme ...
video game developed and published by
The Astronauts
''The Astronauts'' ( Polish: ''Astronauci'') is the first science fiction novel by Polish writer Stanisław Lem published as a book, in 1951.
To write the novel, Lem received advance payment from publishing house Czytelnik (Warsaw). The book b ...
for
Microsoft Windows,
PlayStation 4,
Xbox One
The Xbox One is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. Announced in May 2013, it is the successor to Xbox 360 and the third base console in the Xbox series of video game consoles. It was first released in North America, parts of ...
and
Nintendo Switch.
Gameplay
''The Vanishing of Ethan Carter'' is set in an
open world environment, in which the player can roam around and explore at will; in its opening the game notes that it "does not hold
he player'shand", and as such features very little by way of explanation to the mechanics.
To piece together the story, the player must solve the deaths of the Carter family. Upon finding a dead body, the player can use paranormal abilities in order to recreate the events: first it must sense where important objects are located and restore the scene to its original state, and then reassemble the timeline of events tied to a certain death.
The game also features additional "stories" that must be fully uncovered for the game to receive its final ending; some of these are puzzles, others are more akin to a
stealth game
A stealth game is a type of video game in which the player primarily uses ''stealth'' to avoid or overcome opponents. Games in the genre typically allow the player to remain undetected by hiding, sneaking, or using disguises. Some games allow th ...
which cause the game to be over if the player fails.
Plot
In 1973, paranormal investigator Paul Prospero receives a fan letter from 12-year-old Ethan Carter, inspiring him to journey to Ethan's hometown of Red Creek Valley,
Wisconsin
Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...
. Upon arrival, he learns Ethan has gone missing and begins encountering unsettling paranormal phenomena, as well as evidence of recent violence in the tiny mining village.
As his investigation progresses, Prospero learns the Carter family's dark secret: Ethan had released a
malevolent spirit
In mythology and folklore, a vengeful ghost or vengeful spirit is said to be the spirit of a dead person who returns from the afterlife to seek revenge for a cruel, unnatural or unjust death. In certain cultures where funeral and burial or crem ...
known as the Sleeper through witchcraft, threatening their lives. When his uncle Chad and mother Missy tried to sacrifice him to appease the Sleeper, Ethan escaped with the help of his father Dale; Missy then killed Chad when he attacked Dale, and Dale later killed Missy. Dale then committed suicide in an effort to not become a vessel of the Sleeper as Ethan's older brother Travis now was. Travis turns on Ethan, forcing his grandfather Ed to kill Travis. Ethan and Ed try to destroy the Sleeper's chambers, but Ed traps Ethan inside the chamber and waits to die outside as Ethan sets a fire within. Prospero finds Ethan, but he suddenly vanishes after they both realise Prospero was too late.
If Prospero has uncovered all of Ethan's stories around the world, then using an elaborate mural created by Ethan, Prospero discovers that he is in fact a figment of Ethan's imagination. The cult of the Sleeper was an invention, as were the deaths of the family members during Prospero's investigation. Ethan had built a sanctuary inside a mansion in town to escape his family, particularly his overbearing mother, and abusive brother and uncle. When his mother accidentally sets the mansion on fire, trapping Ethan in the room with no way to save himself, he summons Prospero to provide comfort as he's consumed by the smoke by enacting a fictitious series of events. Having fulfilled his purpose, Prospero tells Ethan to let go, and that a new story awaits before both of them fade from the world.
Development
The game was developed by three former
People Can Fly employees, who had previously worked on
first-person shooter
First-person shooter (FPS) is a sub-genre of shooter video games centered on gun and other weapon-based combat in a first-person perspective, with the player experiencing the action through the eyes of the protagonist and controlling the p ...
video games with the company. The team was interested in moving into more story-heavy games. They almost released ''Come Midnight'' as a collaboration with
THQ
THQ Inc. was an American video game company based in Agoura Hills, California. It was founded in April 1990 by Jack Friedman, originally in Calabasas, and became a public company the following year through a reverse merger takeover. Initi ...
, although ultimately this was canceled. Upon forming their own company, The Astronauts, the team had the freedom they needed to work on such a game.
From the start the game was always going to be focused on horror. In dissecting the genre, lead designer Adrian Chmielarz discovered the genre of
weird fiction
Weird fiction is a subgenre of speculative fiction originating in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Weird fiction either eschews or radically reinterprets ghosts, vampires, werewolves, and other traditional antagonists of supernatural horr ...
and took inspiration from "
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
"An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" (1890) is a short story by the American writer and Civil War veteran Ambrose Bierce. Described as "one of the most famous and frequently anthologized stories in American literature","An Occurrence at Owl Creek ...
". Although he stated that he had the basic idea in mind prior to reading it, the story helped solidify the concept in Chmielarz's mind.
Feeling that settings in games inherently felt "a bit artificial", the team instead were inspired by nature to create a more natural-feeling world. The setting in particular takes inspiration from the Polish
Karkonosze mountains. Chmielarz described the game as being "shot" there. The team used
photogrammetry technology in order to create the in-game environment and make it look like the mountain range.
Reception
''The Vanishing of Ethan Carter'' received positive reviews. Aggregating review website
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...
gave the PlayStation 4 version 81/100 based on 33 reviews, and the Microsoft Windows version 82/100 based on 66 reviews.
The game sold 60,000 copies in its first month on sale.
As of December 2017, the game has sold over a million copies.
Julian Aidan from ''Hardcore Gamer'' praised its well-designed open world, visuals and story, but criticized the gameplay for being too linear, as well as finding the narrative aspect of the game weak. Shaun McInnis from ''
GameSpot
''GameSpot'' is an American video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information on video games. The site was launched on May 1, 1996, created by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady and Jon Epstein. In addition ...
'' praised the simple yet enjoyable puzzle-solving, captivating story, outstanding graphics and breathtaking environments, but criticized its weird and vague auto-save system. Christopher Livingston from ''
PC Gamer
''PC Gamer'' is a magazine and website founded in the United Kingdom in 1993 devoted to PC gaming and published monthly by Future plc. The magazine has several regional editions, with the UK and US editions becoming the best selling PC games m ...
'' also criticized the save system, but praised the decent voice acting, enjoyable puzzle-solving, as well as the intriguing, satisfying, and wonderfully restrained story.
Awards
''The Vanishing of Ethan Carter'' received the Best Game Innovation Awards at 2015's
British Academy Games Awards
The BAFTA Games Awards or British Academy Games Awards are an annual British awards ceremony honouring "outstanding creative achievement" in the video game industry. First presented in 2004 following the restructuring of the BAFTA Interactive En ...
(BAFTA).
Port
''The Vanishing of Ethan Carter'' was ported to
Unreal Engine 4
Unreal Engine (UE) is a 3D computer graphics game engine developed by Epic Games, first showcased in the 1998 first-person shooter game ''Unreal (1998 video game), Unreal''. Initially developed for Personal computer, PC first-person shooters, i ...
, and was released for the PlayStation 4 on July 15, 2015. The Unreal Engine 4 port was released for the PC on September 11, 2015, under the title ''Vanishing of Ethan Carter Redux''. Apart from the new engine, the revised version includes a new save system, and eliminates the backtracking from the ending sequence of the game.
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Vanishing of Ethan Carter
2014 video games
Adventure games
Exploration video games
Detective video games
2010s horror video games
Fiction about murder
Weird fiction video games
Video games about the paranormal
Video games about suicide
Windows games
PlayStation 4 games
Single-player video games
Unreal Engine games
Video games developed in Poland
Video games set in forests
Video games set in Wisconsin
Video games set in the 1970s
Open-world video games
Xbox One games
British Academy Games Award for Technical Achievement winners