#Sea of solitude play time full#
#Sea of solitude play time series#

While topics related to mental health aren’t new to games, they’re far from the norm. I’ve never played games before, but I think I need to play this game.’”

“The bathroom lady - I think she was in her mid-40s - and she said, ‘Cornelia, I was so overwhelmed by your presentation. She likes to tell a story about presenting the title onstage at an E3 press conference and then being approached by a bathroom attendant. That wasn’t Geppert’s goal in creating “Sea of Solitude,” but it’s one of her hopes.

#Sea of solitude play time full#

If games are to speak to those not already playing them, it won’t be because someone just awoke to the majesty of a “Fortnite” or a “Call of Duty” it will be games like “Sea of Solitude,” which show the medium can capture the full breadth of human emotion.ĪLSO: How homework at USC’s game school became Mobius Digital’s buzzed-about ‘Outer Wilds’ »

#Sea of solitude play time series#

It also drew attention for being part of the Electronic Arts roster, a studio known for its sports series (“FIFA”) and its stable of blockbuster-driven studios working on games such as “Star Wars: Battlefront.”īut what was once niche content targeted to indie-hip audiences is now suddenly in demand at larger players, in part due to a growing belief that subscription-based models will be the future of game distribution. “Sea of Solitude” garnered instant attention when it was publicly unveiled at the 2018 Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles, where it was among a handful of anomalies that stood out among games centered around action and violence. This is about having a more calm way of going through life, and that you will know that bad times will come again, and very good times will come again, no matter what you do.” “I want people to see that whatever you are up to - whatever your next goal is - it’s not about that you come out at the end with the perfect score, that you’re the supehero and everything will be fine. “I want them to enjoy the ride,” Geppert says of her goal for those who play “Sea of Solitude.” Yet she also wants those who experience the game to walk away with a different idea of what winning means. While “Sea of Solitude” is far from the first game to look honestly and seriously at weighty subject matter, it advances the notion that play is a storytelling device and not just a means for competition or puzzle solving. Or more crassly: “Ugly runs in your family.”

“You have no idea what you’re doing - as usual,” they may say. And though some of these creatures have the ability to swallow Kay whole, death never appears to be their ultimate goal, not when emotional manipulation will slowly and more excruciatingly allow someone to gradually kill off everything they love about themselves. We will in moments meet a proper monster.

Though monstrous, we’re not scared of her Kay herself is a character who seems afraid, fatigued and ailing. These words might be all too familiar to anyone who’s battled anxiety, depression or so much as had a sleepless night, and this is how we meet Kay, a teenage girl whose once human form has been replaced with demon-red eyes and feathers darkened as if by an oil spill. “Sea of Solitude,” however, starts with an overwhelmed plea, a phrase spoken with equal amounts of desperation and hopelessness: “Change me.” We’re accustomed to games, even the most nuanced, beginning with a clear problem: an outlaw on the run, a world in peril, a loved one kidnapped and held hostage by a gorilla.