Review of SEASON: A letter to the future – or what will be left behind

I always get really excited when I stumble upon a really smart game. One that relies entirely on the strengths of the gaming environment – most notably interactivity and the player’s influence on a partial or overall outcome – and delivers an experience that a book or movie can’t offer you. Ideally, he will also offer a message that will amaze you with its truth so that you will remember it for years to come. SEASON is just such a game. In fact, I suspected her of this from the first trailer – and after playing it, I can say with satisfaction that she really fulfilled her no small ambitions. From the point of view of someone who does not understand this, but unfortunately it has little to offer, since in terms of gameplay it is more or less a so-called “walking simulator”, albeit on a bicycle.

• Platform: PS5 (review) PS4, PC
• Publication date: 01/31/2023
• Manufacturer: Garbage Studio (Canada)
• Genre: adventure game
• Czech localization: No
• Multiplayer: No
• Data to download: 7 GB
• Game time: 7 o’clock
• Price: 583 CZK (couples)

A bit of science fiction

While the game explains some things in great detail, others are deliberately left a bit obscure, including the identity of your main character, a young woman who embarks on her first big journey outside the remote village where she grew up. The village itself at first glance looks quite ordinary, like any mountain village in our world. But you will find in it hints that the world has experienced some kind of cataclysms, after which society as such ceased to function and in general not so many people survived. The reason you’re embarking on this journey has a lot to do with it: the mysterious “end of the season” is approaching, and your goal is to document as much of the world around you as you can before that end comes.

At the very beginning, you will come into contact with a unique technology that is in many ways reminiscent of the movie “Inception”, here, too, for your own safety, you will have to make a special personal “amulet”, the role of which will be to protect your mind. from external attacks. By the way this procedure is conceived, it is quite clear that this is not some kind of spiritual rite, but a measure invented by scientists against a very real threat. In general, the game carefully balances on the verge of science fiction and realism, which is also manifested in the fact that you constantly wonder if this world is ours (hundreds of years in the future, after the fall of civilization) or some completely fictional one. One way or another, unpleasant things happened in her, and, apparently, one such thing is about to happen again.

It’s the end of the season and your goal is to document the world around you.

So, your heroine goes on a lonely pilgrimage, “armed” only with a pedal bike, a camera, a recording microphone and, most importantly, a diary in which you will actively record your experiences and insert pictures taken from your travels. In addition to exploring the game environment itself – on foot (you can get off the bike at any time) or by car, you will first of all create this diary, while you can throw your notes and photos into it randomly or actually win with each page: you decide how important you want to leave behind each other the best evidence of your time and your path. While your journey can be very lonely in some places and maybe even a little creepy at first, there is no combat involved. When you meet another person, he is usually sad about the end of the season and is very happy to have a friendly conversation with you.

What will be left of us

One of the things that makes your trip and experience come to life is an extraordinary expedition. Ever since the game’s first trailer came out, I’ve had a hard time believing that a virtually unknown indie development team could create a game that looks like a high-quality animated movie from start to finish, including styling that doesn’t really matter. The film studio would be ashamed. Coupled with a sensitive musical background and high-quality dubbing, the atmosphere of the game is extremely mature and strong. Even the seemingly “empty” scenes, when you hide in a collapsed building to wait for the rain to pass, have their own weight and charm.

The script itself is just as mature, very sensitively revealing the whole mystery of the surrounding world and the final season, built, among other things, on unforgettable meetings with special people along the way. Of course, I don’t want to give away too much, you will know the answers to most of the key questions, but by the end of the game, there is a good chance that the whole concept and message of the game about how the Transience of the human being and how traceable it is will grab your attention more, than an explanation of the fact that the very time of certain cycles not only in the life of individual people, but also in the existence of civilization as a whole. Shown, including, for example, the differences between periods of war and peace, which, of course, is a very relevant topic in our real world.

The game from start to finish looks like a very high-quality animated film.

As I warned at the beginning of the review, if these topics pass you by and you are not interested in the plot or its ideas, you can easily dismiss the game as “another walking simulator”, although the game has several passages that are clearly adventure, where you will solve relatively simple puzzles or puzzles. But its core is really your diary, which you have to fill in by hand and sometimes you have to come back to it for puzzles. At the same time, you will understand how important it is sometimes to choose exactly what we leave for others – whether for our children, or maybe for complete strangers who will one day discover our things and try to understand from them that we were and that it was similar to the world we lived in.