Free PlayStation game is a gorgeous experience to be played by everyone

There’s a stunning little gem that has just landed on PlayStation Plus this month, meaning you can download and play it right now. It doesn’t take long to play and it’s a delight from start to finish despite some harrowing subject matter. GRIS is a wonderful meditation on grief, it’s a joy to play, but perhaps more so if you’ve ever found yourself struggling to let yourself grown in a world where grief and loss treads you down.

Without sounding awfully pretentious, GRIS is more of a walking-simulator than anything else. The actual ‘playing’ is light as the puzzles aren’t taxing and the platforming isn’t going to challenge a dedicated player, but not all games need that level of difficulty to sell a great idea or indeed be as lovely as this.

Devolver Digital

There’s something wonderful about a game that barely nudges the player. GRIS features no dialogue, very little hand-holding, and lets you explore. Now I will get a little pretentious; surviving grief is a mission of exploration, you have to prod, poke, and pull at threads to see what resonates with you. GRIS is a lot like this, it doesn’t matter if you get lost looking for details, or simply follow the path and revel in the stunning artwork.

I came to this game originally because of its themes. Death has not been a stranger in my life and, for many years, I struggled with how to cope with my own grief. I’m not saying GRIS cures any dark feelings, but if you allow your mind to stay open to just wandering and putting together themes and iconography that are grounded in this feeling of loss, you could get something from it.

I will highlight a couple of comments from Reddit here; one from nikdarg who said, “from the moment the red splash of color appears on the screen, I had silent tears streaming down my face.” They followed this comment with a mention of their own loss and how GRIS helped a little, “The music and the visuals went down into that deep pit I had been in during that time last year, dragged it out, and made it beautiful.”

Devolver Digital

That’s not to say that this gem can only be played if you’re tapping into loss. It’s just a beautiful game overall and one that feels very calming. You could take a screenshot from any point in this game and frame it for display.

You should do yourself a favour and take some time to play this on PlayStation Plus. It won’t take long to finish and it may move you in ways that it has impacted other players. Or it’ll just be an interactive painting to explore with bursts of lush colour. Can’t complain either way, surely.