Return to Grace is coming to Game Pass. It’s a two to three-hour-long narrative game with a few light puzzles. It’s the 39th century and humanity has spread amongst the planets and moons of our solar system. Grace, a super AI that helped regiment every aspect of our lives has been out of commission for hundreds of years and you’re an archaeologist trying to figure out why. It’s coming to Game Pass on cloud, console, and PC today. It’s a short, sweet experience, so let’s dig into it as spoiler-free as possible.
Humanity
People, our choices, and feelings are the center of Return to Grace. You’ll play as Adie, an archaeologist attempting to discover why the super AI known as Grace disappeared. To do this you’ll visit Ganymede, a moon of Jupiter where Grace was supposed to be. While the game takes place far in our future, Grace’s time is over a thousand years before our character was even born. Adie has taken a one-way trip to try and find her, with only an AI companion on board.
This is a short, narrative-focused game so I’ll keep this review as short and spoiler-free as possible. Adie will meet with various AI characters as she visits various facilities on the moon’s surface. You will have the opportunity to make a few key choices, but most of the game is a linear narrative experience. It’s a solid walking simulator, with an interesting story to tell. My only issue with the game is how obvious some of the answers you are going to get end up being. Your character seems oblivious to them for plot convenience.
There’s no combat to speak of, only walking and context-sensitive prompts for climbing and one sequence where you have to aim. The voice work is solid, with the main character’s actress giving her depth, wit, and a bit of humor. The writing does a believable job of explaining this version of our future solar system without it ever becoming confusing. Technology is far beyond what we have today, but there is no “space magic” elements to anything. It’s grounded and believable.
Graphically the game has moments of beauty mixed with some mediocre texture resolutions. It’s never ugly, though you can see the budgetary limitations. The art style is a 60’s idea of what the future may look like. It’s clean, bright, colorful, and occasionally gorgeous. Alongside the competent voice work are a few hits of pleasant music. The game can feel a bit too quiet at times, but when things kick in they match the tone of each scene as you would hope.
Wrapping Things Up
Return to Grace is a short but sweet narrative adventure game. The puzzles are infrequent and never frustrating, while the storytelling and voice acting do an admirable job in telling this futuristic tale about the hopes and dreams of humanity. I think it’s well worth checking out on Game Pass.
Review | Return to Grace
Played on
Steam
PROS
- Great art style
- Solid voice work
- Matched by competent writing
CONS
- Choices feel simplistic
- The “bad” side is moustache-twirling levels of bad
Looks interesting. Hope the camera works for me.
Played this for a bit, and I would have liked it and continued playing if it didn’t take control away from me every two minutes and if it significantly toned down the annoying ai chatter. There’s cool ideas & world there but just couldn’t go on with those annoying design choices.
I do believe their is a option to cut down chatter in the settings for the ai… but that is how the game tells its story so cutting it down may take away what is happening
Enjoying it so far - using it as a chill out break between the emotion of Banishers, the compulsive cleanliness of Powerwash Simulator DLC (and A Little To The Left) and starting Tales of Arise (also may check out Dead Island 2).
I like the “intriguing story as you walk” games, it’s reminding me of Deliver Us The Moon / Mars and The Invincible which I loved
I played it for about 20 mins, seems interesting, seems a lot like a recent game called Invincible or deliver us the moon but I’m always up for these types of gams
Yep I’m an hour or two in now, and I’m finding the different AIs quite interesting - particularly the function / approach of each and don’t mind the chatter.
I can see how someone who wasn’t a fan of the genre might find it a bit much though
I like this genre. My favorites are Edith Finch & Firewatch. I’m still salty Valve bought the Firewatch studio and stopped developments on their project.
Finished it this morning, really enjoyed it.
Definitely makes you think about the nature of AI and utopia etc., definitely worth the play