The best game released in 2022, a definitely creepy game that verges on horror, is currently on sale on Steam for the ludicrously low price of £8.37. Immortality is not just the best game from 2022 but I will say, hand on heart, that it’s one of my favourite games of the last five years.
The only problem with Immortality is that it’s hard to be brazenly open about why I love it, mostly because I want to do nothing more than spoil it for you. Because, there’s a moment, about an hour or so into this detective-style game where everything you know gets tipped on its head. The Earth shifts beneath you and suddenly everything takes a very sinister turn.
When this moment arrived for me I put the controller down and took a moment. The emotions I felt, and feel right now as I write this recommendation, were overwhelming. It was a highlight where I could honestly say that gaming delivered a moment that could not be created in any other form of media. Not even film, which Immortality so closely aligns with.
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I already knew that the creator, Sam Barlow, was a very special talent in the industry but that moment marked him as a genius in my eyes and put him in the upper echelon of creators I admire, where he joined David Lynch, Franz Kafka, and a collection of surrealist painters I adore. All people who shift a comfortable axis on which we rely changing my perspective on what entertainment can really do.
Immortality is a detective game where you’ll piece together what happened to famed actress Marissa Marcel, played superbly by Manon Gage. In order to find out what happened to her you’ll trawl an archive of material from Marcel’s films, interviews, and behind-the-scenes footage, linking them to other clips in order to uncover more details.
One clip from one film might link to another via an actor you zoom in on or an object held in one scene. It could take you to an interview on a chat show where Marcel talks about life in Hollywood. There are dark themes throughout and the subject matter can often be very heavy, all adding to the pervading suspense of the mystery. However, it’s what lies beneath these clips, or should I say inside them, beneath them, that really gets the blood pumping.
Going back to ‘that moment’ mentioned above, it was here that I felt a creeping sense of dread. My blood ran a bit colder - it was like opening the curtains on a crime scene or an act of violence that only I was privy to. Time felt jumbled, the clips I watched felt more and more private, and I felt like James Stewart in Rear Window.
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I’m going to sound incredibly pretentious saying this but Immortality doesn’t feel like a game, it’s an experience. It plays on your emotions by employing staggering acting and ridiculously clever game mechanics to make for an unforgettable experience. I didn’t stop thinking about this game for months after playing it. I wish I could play it again with no knowledge.
Buy it, turn the lights off, and let yourself be overwhelmed by the immortal life of Marissa Marcel.