We’re on a video call with an older woman who’s not quite sure how to use the platform, her choppy Internet connection causing the audio to stutter and fall out of sync with the video feed. It’s a familiar situation but what the woman is telling us is, fortunately, rather less so. Her neighbour, Ivy, has gone missing. And, as you dig into the recent history of Ivy’s employer, it turns out she’s not the only one.
This is the starting point of the Isklander trilogy, a series that exists somewhere in the space between immersive theatre, escape rooms and videogames, and which plays out entirely within a web browser. To find answers to its mysteries, you need to scour characters’ Facebook and Instagram profiles, break into email inboxes using guessed-at passwords, and deploy your search engine of choice to track down relevant web pages (some of which have been built for in-universe companies, others tucked into the actual sites of businesses and institutions). Watching an old BBC news clip on YouTube that seems to confirm the conspiracy at Isklander’s heart, we find ourselves wondering, not for the last time, what exactly is real and what isn’t.
Watching an old BBC news clip, we wonder, not for the last time, what exactly is real and what isn’t
This story is from the October 2021 edition of Edge.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the October 2021 edition of Edge.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles
Anyone familiar with the concept of kitbashing is already halfway to understanding what Tomas Sala’s open-world builder is all about.
Children Of The Sun
René Rother’s acrid revenge thriller – an action game with its limbs broken and forcibly rearranged into the shape of a spatial puzzler – is at once a bonafide original and an unlikely throwback. Cast your eyes right and you wouldn’t blink if we told you this was a forgotten Grasshopper Manufacture game from the early PS3 era (we won’t be at all surprised if this finds a spot on Suda51’s end-of-year list).
Post Script
What does Rise Of The Ronin say for PS5 exclusivity?
Rise Of The Ronin
Falling in battle simply switches control to the next person up, and then quick revive fixes everything
Post Script
The pawn and the pandemic
Dragon's Dogma 2
The road from Vernworth to Bakbattahl is scenic but arduous. Ignore the dawdling mobs of goblins, and duck beneath the chanting harpies that circle on the currents overhead, and even moving at a hurried clip it is impossible for a party of four to complete the journey by nightfall.
BLUE MANCHU
How enforced early retirement eventually led Jonathan Chey back to System Shock
THE MAKING 0F.... AMERICAN ARCADIA
How a contrast of perspectives added extra layers to a side-scrolling platform game
COMING IN TO LAND
The creator of Spelunky, plus a super-group of indie developers, have spent the best part of a decade making 50 games. Has the journey been worth it?
VOID SOLS
This abstract indie Soulslike has some bright ideas