Empathy: Path of Whispers

If you cherish piecing together clever, dramatic plot fragments and don’t mind lots of backtracking while rummaging through dimly-lit locales, then you owe it to yourself to play Empathy: Path of Whispers.

Empathy: Path of Whispers is as if someone copied Malevich's famous Black Square painting just ‘‘because I can’’, without any understanding or ideas behind the copy.

Empathy: Path of Whispers has a barely good story, but the lack of gameplay is something really unforgettable.

While it may not indulge as much on its aesthetic to better hide the distinct lack of gameplay, Empathy: Path of Whispers can’t excuse itself for letting its eye go too far a stray from keeping its player both focused and interested in the tale being spun. Though it’s far from the actual narrative’s fault for the game’s all-round mediocre delivery, the insistency on following an established formula across a bulk of the game’s all-round length doesn’t excuse the choppy, blurred and fairly average quality of its visual design. The warranted need to fine-tune its brief puzzles aside, Empathy: Path of Whispers is intriguing in moderation, but little else.

Playing through Empathy: Path of Whispers didn’t take me much time, yet I found myself wishing it were shorter.

Empathy wants to be a narrative-first game, that much is clear. But the constant distractions, menial busywork, and tedious puzzles constantly distract from the pacing that’s so critical to a story like this, and the end result is something that doesn’t really work well as either a puzzle game or a narrative experience.

Pixel Night makes a brave foray into the exploration genre that doesn’t quite pan out in the end due to detached storytelling and repetitive mechanics. If you’re a dedicated adventure game player, Empathy: Path of Whispers will offer little challenge, except maybe in the way of overcoming boredom. It is, at the end of the day, a walking simulator that knows exactly what it wants to be, but falls a few steps short of actually being it.