Echoes Of The End

Anyone who's played a big-budget action-adventure game from the past 15 years may get a sense of déjà vu from Echoes Of The End.

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With its light and heavy attack combinations and guiding checkpoints, it borrows (lightly) from Dark Souls. The powers and items you use to solve environmental puzzles bear the whiff of Star Wars Jedi: Survivor and the Tomb Raider reboots. As in the Last Of Us and God Of War, an AI companion with complementary abilities follows you on your travels. In fairness, this game is a modest production in comparison to those heavyweights, yet as such it needs to distinguish itself somehow, as did, say, A Plague Tale: Innocence. Instead it reminds us of the careful craft in those other games, not by matching it but by showing what happens when it's missing.

At the root of the game is a banal fantasy, enriched only by the sheen of Unreal Engine and tinges of Myrkur Games' native Icelandic folklore. It's constructed of familiar components: a father figure (the techy Abram) teaches a young woman (protagonist Ryn) to open up and trust. Ryn is a 'Vestige', able to manipulate the environment with her mind; her powers make her both dangerous and special. In the bigger picture, an evil empire threatens a smaller nation. As they tour the world to rescue Ryn's kidnapped brother, the pair banter and yap, but their dialogue fails to fizz. Backstories and lore are explored, but without emotional heft or chemistry. This is a tale that lacks poetic silence, the halting word, the intimate gesture.