Game: Season: A Letter to the Future
Genre: Walking Sim, Atmospheric
System: Steam (also available for PS4 and PS5)
Developer|Publisher: Scavengers Studio
Age Rating: US E | UK 3+
Price: UK £20.99 | EU € 24,99 | USD $24.99
Release Date: January 31st, 2023
No review code was used; I purchased the game myself.
Season: A Letter to the Future is a short, scenic journey through a changing world. It is all about excepting change, moving from one season to the next. The main character, Estelle, is chosen to go out into the wilds to make a journal of the world as it is before it changes forever.
The Wild Journey Of Season: A Letter to the Future
At the beginning of Season: A Letter to the Future, we are introduced to a young woman who has been chosen to leave her home village of Caro. No one has ever left before; the world has been plagued by war and disease, and closing Caro off from everything else is the only thing that has kept its people safe for the length of this Season.
One day, a boy has a vision in his sleep. This vision signals the end of the current Season and the beginning of the next. The people are wary; while this current Season has been peaceful, the one before was a 10-year-long war that ravaged the people and destroyed countless lives.
Worried, they send our main character out into the world to find out what is causing the change in Season while taking notes on how the world is now to save this Season’s memory for the next. This walking simulator takes Estelle from her home village that she’s never left, across the country, and to the valley where the change of Season is brewing.
Players must ride their bikes, take photos, talk to strangers, record the sounds of the places she visits, and note down all the objects she sees in their journal for the future. You are in charge of what goes on each page, and players must fill out as many pages as possible before the end.
A Beautiful World Full of Poetry
Estelle, our main character, will talk about all the items, places, animals, and people she sees as we take photos of them. Her father was a poet when he was alive, and Estelle seems to take after him. She builds poetry in her mind as each bit of this current season flows through her pencil onto the page and into her camera lens.
The music, the setting, and the world are gorgeous, loving rendered in amazing detail. The graphics are highly stylized and amazing. The characters are warm and unique. We get to follow Estelle on her hero’s journey, learning about the place she’s lived and the places beyond.
There is a kind of loneliness in Season: A Letter to the Future that is incredibly appealing. Through most of the 3-6 or so hours you’ll spend exploring, players will spend most of it alone. She walks through her village before the others have woken and rides her bike through empty swaths of wilderness. It’s a very emotional piece of art, and players that immerse themselves in the narrative will come out of the other side of it feeling like they were part of it.
Conclusion – Season: A Letter to the Future is So Good
I can’t say enough how much I adore this game. It’s warm, it’s weird, it’s beautiful, it’s lonely, it’s full of emotion, connection, and what change is for us all as humans. In the same way, we crave change while we are afraid of it, Season: A Letter to the Future will be both a warm hug and some cold reality, a home and a strange land, and a joy as well as a heartache.
Final Verdict: Two Thumbs Up:
