Dear Esther

Dear Esther is a 2012 adventure game developed and published by The Chinese Room. First released in 2008 as a free modification for the Source game engine, the game was entirely redeveloped for a commercial release in 2012. The commercial version was released for Microsoft Windows in February 2012 and OS X in May 2012; ports for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One were released by Curve Digital in September 2016. Dear Esther is a narrative-focused game with almost no interactions between the player and the world, a design which was controversial on release but later proved influential. The player's only objective in the game is to explore an unnamed island in the Hebrides, Scotland, listening to a troubled man read a series of letters to his deceased wife. Details of her mysterious death are revealed as the player moves throughout the island. Dear Esther received positive reviews from critics, and is credited with popularising the walking simulator genre in the 2010s. The Chinese Room released a spiritual successor to Dear Esther, titled Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, in 2015.