Draugen Review
Row, row, row your boat…
I head towards the shore in a small rowing boat, the evening air shrouded in a dim fog. Everything is quiet and still, save for the chatter of my companion. A cocky lass by the name of Lissie, she’s headstrong with an infectious positivity towards everything. I can’t decide whether she’s charming my pants off or doing my head in.
It’s 1923, and as Edward Charles Harden I’m travelling to the sleepy coastal town of Graavik in Norway. The purpose of my journey is to find my estranged sister, Betty. But when we arrive, she’s nowhere to be found – in fact, no-one is anywhere to be found.
Draugen is the latest release from Red Thread Games, the developers of Dreamfall Chapters. On the whole, it’s a decidedly more grounded story than the fantastical, otherworldly adventures of their previous game. In fact, if it didn’t already ring a bell, Draugen shares much more in common with Everybody’s Gone To The Rapture in its old-timey portrayal of a village mysteriously abandoned.
Speaking of story, however, Draugen doesn’t instantly hit the ground running. I found it difficult to feel particularly invested in my search for Betty, knowing little of her. It takes a while to even get your head around who the main characters are and what their relationship is to each other. This obfuscation is very much by design, but the result is an ultimately meaningless-feeling – albeit still mildly interesting – first third or so.
Interaction with your sole compatriot, Lissie, doesn’t help matters. On one hand, the dialogue menu is a joy to use, with a slick design and extra information provided about each option to help you decide. On the other, Lissie is somewhat caricature-like, her designations of “old bean,” “old sport” and “old boy” getting old pretty quickly. The disappointingly robotic facial animation also undermines her expressive voice acting.
Stick with it, however, and Draugen rewards your persistence. It’s a very pedestrian affair, a peaceful saunter of a game in both a literal and figurative sense. But without revealing too much, you’ll unravel the secrets of this old mining town, experience a taste of Norweigan folklore and get blindsided by a couple of brilliant twists along the way. The setup very much pays off.
Graavik is also a delightful setting to escape to for several hours, with rolling hills and snow-capped mountains on one side, calm waves of the sea on the other. The town is thick with lush flora and trees with leaves turned an autumnal apricot. In your short stay, you’ll experience a full spectrum of striking weather and lighting, from drizzly mist that obscures your vision to glorious sunshine and raging thunderstorms – seemingly, at times, a pathetic fallacy of Edward’s state of mind.
If you didn’t gather, Draugen is quite the looker. Its minimalist user interface respects this, with subtle focus points and fittingly styled interaction text that avoid obstructing the lavish scenery. If there’s one thing that lets down the visuals slightly, it’s the overly tiled-looking textures in places, but this is a minor grumble.
The gorgeous, evocative music is another highlight, drawing on strings and piano arrangements and even choir ensembles to set an ethereal, and sometimes haunting, tone. Draugen masterfully builds atmosphere and its soundtrack is an integral part of that.
There’s something to be said, too, for a game that recognises its limits. Draugen wisely curtails its ambition to a small setting with a linear structure and a short-but-sweet playtime. It trims bloat to keep the experience laser-focused on the story it wants to tell, and is all the stronger for it. Despite undeniably fitting the dreaded moniker of ‘walking simulator,’ it doesn’t drag – there’s even the luxury of a run button.
Whereas a more compelling introduction could have better grabbed the player’s attention, Draugen’s plot and design decisions are mostly done for good reason. Typically not one to rush through a game, I nonetheless eagerly consumed it in a single sitting. By the time the credits rolled, I had no regrets about letting myself be absorbed in this quaint rural locale and its captivating tale for a scant few hours of my time.
[Reviewed on PC]