Tacoma

Tacoma ultimately succeeds as a piece of emotional storytelling. Every moment spent with the crew is spellbinding, as their strengths and struggles play out in painful detail. The experience is sometimes frustrating, but Tacoma leaves a lasting impression.

As with Fullbright’s previous game, Gone Home, Tacoma won’t be for everyone, but it’s a masterclass in environmental and gradual storytelling. It weaves an intriguing story against the backdrop of a believable near-future culture. I think its linearity combined with my extensive exploration means I won’t replay it unless I suddenly think of a question I want answered or until I’ve forgotten a sufficient amount that it feels like a new discovery. But that’s not a criticism. I got everything I wanted from that playthrough and I loved it. [RPS Recommended]

Its twists are carefully planted and developed within that flood of information, subverting expectations based on Fullbright’s previous game, as well as those that have spawned in its wake. Its innovations are likely to be quietly imitated and refined for years to come, but, like its predecessor, it is most remarkable for doing something simpler and much more rare: It tells a damn good story.

Tacoma isn’t the revelation Gone Home was, but it also doesn’t have to be. Abrupt conclusion aside, the game is a smart and emotional experience, one that pushes the nascent first-person exploration genre ever slightly forward. If Gone Home was proof that first-person narrative games had a future, Tacoma represents that very future — and how much potential it still has.