Developer: Flavourworks, London Studio
Publisher: Flavourworks Limited, Sony Interactive Entertainment
Platform: PC, PS4, iOS
Tested on: PC
Erica (PC) – Review
After coming out on PlayStation 4 in 2019 and on iOS just this year, the interactive live-action thriller Erica has landed on Steam since the 25th of May. Immerse yourself in a movie-like experience where the world of film and video games merges, and make tactile choices to shape a unique path through the game’s story. In this review, we’ll also be comparing the gameplay between PC and Playstation 4/iOS because there’s a big difference between the experiences. If you would like to learn about the game’s experience on PS4, you can go and check out our previous review by clicking right here.
Story
The game starts with young Erica, our protagonist. She and her father are enjoying a nice evening by the fireplace while her father is sharing memories about her late mother, both not knowing about the gruesome event that will be happening very soon. Later that night, little Erica walks back into the very same room, only to find her father’s lifeless body lying on the floor. Upon closing in, she notices that all the blood came from – what seems like – an occult symbol carved deep in his chest. After hugging him tight for a brief moment, Erica gets abruptly interrupted by someone at the door opening. It’s the murderer, pointing their gun right at Erica. The last thing she hears and sees is the clicking of the gun being cocked.
Erica screams as she jolts up from her bed. We’re seemingly years later, as she is much older and is now living in a small flat, all alone. Everything that we’ve seen at the beginning of the game was a nightmare she just had. A nightmare where she relives the night of her father’s murder.
If her life and this traumatic event from her childhood don’t sound bad enough, it is all becoming even worse after she has received a horrifying package from a mysterious sender at her doorstep. After contacting the police, there are suspicions that the contents of said package and the murder of her father are linked. It is decided that it is best for Erica to temporarily return to Delphi House where she used to live as a child. Delphi House, an asylum her father founded and where her mother used to work, is also the place where the murder took place.
There, Erica meets people from her parents’ past, as well as several young women staying at the asylum. Erica soon begins to unravel the mystery behind Delphi House, her father’s killing, and the mysterious symbol that appears throughout the story. She finds grisly new clues, sees inexplicable visions and unearths shocking truths we could never have imagined.
Graphics
Erica isn’t the typical video game you are used to. The game is a live-action/FMV interactive video game that’s very cinematic with the feel of quite a high production value. You could loosely compare this game with ‘Choose Your Own Adventures’ such as the games in the Telltale Games Series or Black Mirror’s Bandersnatch episode on Netflix.
Now, “a high production value” has been mentioned, and that’s because the cinematography is magnificent. The game is well shot in every scene, and the lighting is always on point and brings out the ambiance perfectly. Combined with an excellent cast and performance, there’s nothing negative that can be mentioned here.
Sound
Erica has a superb musical score that can be enjoyed throughout the whole playthrough. Sometimes it’s just atmospheric and at other times it’s very notable (you’ll know what song we are talking about when you play the game). Overall, the sound is exceptional and we were easily immersed in the experience.
Fun fact: the musical score is composed by Austin Wintory and it was nominated for “original composition” awards at the 23rd Annual D.I.C.E. Awards and the 2019 International Film Music Critics Association Awards.
Gameplay
As said before, Erica isn’t your typical video game. Erica is an interactive live-action mystery-thriller wherein every choice you make has a profound effect on what you will see next in the game, with frequent decisions allowing continuous interaction. Erica is basically an interactive movie, but instead of sitting back and just watching everything unfold, you will actually be taking action and steering the story’s direction. But how does this all work if it’s essentially a movie with only a length of around 90 minutes?
Your main actions in the game are clicking given points on the screen, such as dialogue options, or dragging and dropping items, for example opening a document file or opening a door. On occasion, these actions are quick-time events. Most of said choices and actions will lead you to several different sequences in the game and ultimately, to a different ending. That is why replaying Erica is definitely recommended.
If you still remember the introduction to this review, we mentioned that we’d be comparing the gameplay experience between PC and PlayStation 4/iOS. As said before, there’s a lot of clicking/dragging and dropping involved. On PS4 and iOS, this would be tapping and swiping physically, since the game was actually meant to be played with a touchpad, i.e. controller’s touchpad, or an app on a smartphone. This got kind of obvious throughout the playthrough. There was always this feeling that swiping something in the game would’ve been much smoother and faster if you could just touch the screen. Clicking in the environment was no problem at all, but there was a struggle when swiping or rotating an object in the game. Especially the swiping/dragging part. Most of the time, it was impossible to drag something in one flow. You had to let go of the mouse and click and drag several times to e.g. open a document folder. This does, unfortunately, break the immersion for that particular moment.
Conclusion
If you’d ignore the small dragging issue in the gameplay, you could almost say that Erica is a perfect cinematic masterpiece of a video game. The game keeps you glued to the screen with its intriguing, mysterious story, its phenomenal cinematography and performances, and its tensive gameplay where your choices and actions actually matter. It does change up the story’s sequence and the game’s ending which makes Erica replayable multiple times.
Erica (PC) – Review,
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