Given that your daily doses of shameless outdoor cavorting are likely fairly regulated right now, you probably won’t object to more free stuff being bundled into your laps to keep those hours distractedly ticking by – and Epic Games is once again on hand to do just that, this time flinging Gone Home and Hob up onto its store’s weekly freebie table.
Gone Home, of course, needs little introduction, having brought the so-called walking simulator genre crashing into the limelight back in 2013. Developed by The Fullbright Company, it tells the story of a young woman who returns to her family home after a year abroad, only to find it mysteriously deserted.
What follows is a frequently captivating, wonderfully authentic family drama that slowly unfolds as players piece together the clues and scraps of information strewn naturally around the expansive home. It’s a little bit spooky, surprisingly moving, and should even managed to prod a few nostalgia buttons, given its keenly realised 90s setting.
Gone Home – Launch Trailer Watch on YouTube
“Gone Home stands apart from other narrative games in three respects,” said Edwin Evans-Thirlwell when he revisited the game on consoles in 2016, “It understands that what we own both is and isn’t who we are. It appreciates that characters are often most vivid, most solid in their absence. And it knows that the one thing you can’t put back is time.”