In an age where many gamers judge a game’s worth based on the hours of entertainment it provides, numbers like 260 or the more ambiguous “hundreds” are proudly displayed bullet points on the backs of many game boxes when describing how long each title can last. It often comes as a surprise, then, when a game is announced to be only a few hours long.
That is the case with The Chinese Room, the developer behind the upcoming game Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture, and their latest announcement. In response to a fan’s question on the game’s length, the developer tweeted that it “depends a lot on how much you explore. Probably 4-6 hours. Lots of insides to explore”.
For the genre, the length seems rather appropriate. Long enough for the player to feel some emotional connection with the world but short enough to hopefully not feel any sense of artificial padding. The game tasks the player with unraveling the mysteries of a mysterious little English village in the countryside by exploring the pasts of six main characters.
The developer also commented that they would not release a physical version of the game unless it sells “a very large number of copies”. Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture releases on August 11th exclusively on PS4. For all things gaming, keep checking back with Gamespresso.