The Suicide of Rachel Foster Reviews

"The Suicide of Rachel Foster" is a story-based game that takes you through an old, abandoned hotel filled with secrets. The graphics are beautiful, and the sound effects are amazing, making the game feel very real and immersive. The story is truly awesome, deep, and emotional. The beginning feels a bit slow and boring, but as the game goes on, it gets more interesting. By the end, the story becomes a masterpiece, making all the waiting worth it. If you love mystery and psychological thriller games, this is a great choice. It may start slow, but the ending is unforgettable! ⭐ Rating: 7/10

This is a very interesting game. I wasn't sure what to expect going into it but I was surprised by how much i enjoyed this game. There isn't much to explore and is a very straight forward story based game. The writers did a great job thou at putting this story together and executed it perfectly. Strongly recommend for those who love a good story/mystery!

Beautiful setting. Engaging first act. Oftentimes compelling. Most of the time disappointing. Our story taking place in a rural mountain range in Montana. Where our protagonist Nicole takes ownership of her family's hotel and lodge, with the intention of selling it. Becoming trapped inside the hotel, and leaving the inspection of the building on her to complete. She meets with a town local, and FEMA agent: Irving. Where his companionship, and help, are her only bastion in the desolate, and abandoned mountain hotel. Parts of this whole experience including, Walking simulator, Horror, and Adventure style game-play. The visual narrative is told through correspondence, via a makeshift cellphone and two-way radio. Nicole and Irving quickly becoming friends over the course of a few nights, and with some small tasks carried out during her stay. The hotels history becomes the central point of discussion, when a ten year old mystery resurfaces; involving Nicole's father, and a young woman from her past: Rachel. This wherein our story switches its investigative beginnings, into a complex web of family history, an affair, and the eventual suicide of Rachel Foster. While the game-play and it's mechanics are simple at heart. They are completely functional in serving its purpose. The design of the hotel itself, and it's surrounding areas are extremely detailed, and left the impression that the spaces it presents have been lived, and worked in recently. Following that, the amazing sound design that layers over the course of the games chapters, is something quite unsettling. Unfortunately for the game's overall cohesiveness, this is where the compliments end. When it's story pulls you into one direction (and it can often do so, very powerfully) the tension and buildup become so gargantuan in scale, that the payoff must be equally as grand in design. This isn't the case here. Where it's story can take you is, on the surface a very mature and compelling structure of it's core. And not to mention the voice acting to support such a narrative, becomes almost life-like in scope. Nothing seems to work in it's final moments to make a lasting impression. Let alone a memorable one. And what a wasted potential for all its merits. As far as the rest of its game-play goes. It can be slightly on the uninspired side of things, considering the nature of this genre as a whole. The game lets you explore its vast world with very little to do in it; outside of its story progressing moments. With long spaces of time spent delivering dialog (which is great most of the time) but why have mechanics like: inventory, and puzzles if they are only used once or twice? It begs to be answered. And left a feeling like the sum of its parts are better ideas on paper, rather than in execution. Even for the games that share similar themes, style and game-play. These examples: Soma, What Remains of Edith Finch, Firewatch, Mundaun, Stray. They all sustain their mission statements throughout, and expertly deliver on all aspects of their respective genre, and game designs. Whether that be a memorable and captivating story, or a vicariously delivered experience; which these types of games can do so well. Or maybe even a perspective of life never traveled before. That's what these games can bring. Even the games that didn't hold up to the aforementioned. Those examples being: Gone Home, Everyone's Gone to the Rapture, Scorn. Even these games have weight to their world building, their atmosphere, and their writing. The Suicide of Rachel Foster is everything you would possibly want. But its often fleeting choices in game design, and story development, will leave most feeling empty at the "what if's" left out to dry. From it's grand slow-burn of an opener. To it's amazing world, that actually had care put into it; using UE4 to its greatest strengths, to show off wonderful lighting and lifelike textures to breathe life into this place. The game's amazing sound design and great voice acting are a treat, and a great touch that inspired many games that came after. And for those moments, it's great. But as quickly as the finger snaps, it can all become unthreaded on it's own loose nails. With an almost absent puzzle element, which begs the question "why have it at all?" To it's careful, brick-laying-style storytelling from the offset, that eventually leads to dead ends and ever growing questions. That culminates into a less than desired finale, and splits it's mood and pacing from what it had been building prior. All the great tension and genuine care you might have, is never really fulfilled. Leaving you to wonder what could have been. Short doesn't equal bad No puzzles, or light on puzzles doesn't mean boring Sustained tension and released satisfaction can happen in a variety of ways. Great design does not equal great game. Great sound and voice acting needs to have great direction to support it. The overall experience should have been more memorable than the final result. Given this team clearly had captured something quite unique for the time. Which is a shame. Because with all honesty, this could have been one of the very greats the genre ever had. From its forward thinking story and extremely mature subject matter; which balances varying emotions from one high to it's deepest of lows. A complex and fully believable relationship, with it's own nuances throughout. It becomes a game where it seems more interested in delivering it's message in an apt way. But failing to realize that it's target audience is fully capable of making smart and educated analyses of it's own content. As we are given threads to something that was very daring and boundary pushing in all of it's conventions. But when we get a glimpse into what may come, we are still left holding those threads. As we get tossed in it's grand waves, and get to see what beauties lie below the surface. When we ultimately come back for air, the waters below become distorted, and the time spent below wasn't enough for our breathes to hold. 5/10 (Mediocre)

"touches on mature subject matter" is a weird way to say "this game excuses a grown man assaulting and impregnating a young girl (who is constantly spoken about as being so "mature for her age" while also being babied) because the main character who is about as likeable as a dead car battery values him so much". it's like you WANTED to be Lolita but that relationship is meant to be a BAD thing told through the view of a demented and perverted man who is clearly an unreliable narrator, and what happens here is what the movies do with that book-- romanticise it. i got it when it was 90% off, absolutely no way i would play it otherwise.

This is the worst game I've ever played. It's boring, the story makes no sense, it treats very sensitive topics with disdain, it misses every point where it could be good. I kept trying to get into it thinking it would ramp up. DO NOT BUY!

these bugs are horrendous. play this in window mode if you dont want to lose all your progress, especially on the longer days towards the end of the game, i didnt really have issues until day 8-9. if youre not a fan of less plot more walking simulator games, this is definitely not for you. even the running option is rather slow, the area you "explore" is huge, but theres not much exploration, really. the story is linear and you dont have much room to investigate on your own. the game allows you to pick up and look at every single toothpaste around, but theres no commentary whatsoever outside of key objects or then again some super random stuff. so dont even bother much with that. as for the plot, well thats a whole different can of worms. semi spoilers ahead, kept vague// [spoiler]i wouldnt wish this game on my worst enemy. just from start to the beginning very weird and poorly made, the writing is predictable, which is fine, but bad for a game meant to uncover a mystery. the protagonist is fairly unlikeable , though irving managed to annoy me the most. you can find a reason for everyones behavior, really, but it doesnt matter much when the characters remain insufferable. the characters are kjust very weird. sensitive topics were treated with little to no care, the abuse victim, which the game is even titled after, is cast aside and nothing more than that. even her disability is inconsistent, and all we hear about her is how oh so perfect she was. even when theres the chance to get further insight on her through either the mcs father or rachels brother, it doesnt happen. the ending is even weirder, though i found some morbid enjoyment in it, when blaming it on the fact that by then nicole had probably gone a bit mad from isolation. its sad, maybe a little thought provoking, but nothing special. definitely nothing anyone should play if sensitive to the topics it deals with, because its incredibly bleak.[/spoiler]

some moments felt too long. its impossible to skip the lines that take a lot of time, even when they were already clear enough. also, why wasnt there a save list? ? i wanted to go back to one of my choices and redo it but it was impossible. but the game itself is fine, love graphics, the plot, atmosphere

I really wanted to like this. The hotel was interesting, it seemed fun to be locked in it and solving a mystery. Lots of secret passages neat things to discover. But the dialogue is... bad and there is a lot of it. The main character can't seem to put obvious clues together. I think the writers are trying to make things obvious for the media illiterate but someone not interested in just a story isn't playing a walking simulator. You'll get through a very simple straight forward conversation and then at the main character will say something like "oh, what you're saying is..." and summarize the whole thing. I see a lot of people saying it excuses the pedophilia but I never got that impression and I think it actually really shows that this guy came in and took advantage of a girl with a disability and it destroyed her's and everyone around them's life. The problem really comes from how melodramatic the ending is and the great lengths they went to to show how bad the pedo felt. The main character discovers the truth, breaks down crying, yep, makes sense it was a lot. Then she attempts to kill herself in her car (her only direct connection to the murder is her hockey stick is the murder weapon) then starts speaking to people that aren't there about making the hotel great again. It would make more sense to sell the hotel (as she's there to inspect it before the sale) because the truth is out and laid to rest. It's so weird. I think the writers wanted to spice it up. And I think that's the problem, it's trying to be bigger and grander than it is. I think they thought players wouldn't be interested in just telling a story so it was punched up with ghosts and people going crraaazzzyyy from the dark secret. It comes off as immature like a teenager's idea of a deep story. It can't be a story about the past or about learning about a horrible family secret, it has to be deep man. Lots of back tracking for some reason. Like you wake up in a remote area of the hotel, need to walk back to your room to get your flashlight (it's not that dark) and walk all the way back just to look at things, on the way back I found a hidden passage but it didn't lead anywhere useful and no one commented on it. Each time you interact with something you have to wait for an animation of holding a walky talky to your ear and long winded dialogue. Honestly, the game would be better without irving or the supernatural elements, they're half baked and don't serve the plot. It was interesting in the lead up because everything could be explained as the wind and that was creepier because your mind goes to spooks, then the goofy irving conversations break the tension. Gone Home did a much better job of telling a story while exploring an empty location.

I really wanted to enjoy The Suicide of Rachel Foster, but the experience was marred by constant technical issues. The game was incredibly glitchy, forcing me to research fixes just to progress. At one point, I had to quit and restart due to an audio bug, and another time, a black screen issue required tabbing in and out to resolve. On top of that, navigating the game was frustrating—interacting with objects would sometimes cause my cursor to "escape" the window, pausing the game and forcing me to mess with the menu just to continue. Beyond the technical problems, the story itself felt underdeveloped. There were so many missed opportunities to explore the themes and characters more deeply, but instead, it felt rushed and incomplete. While the premise had potential, the execution left a lot to be desired. Unfortunately, between the glitches and the lackluster storytelling, this game ended up being more of a disappointment than an immersive experience.

TLDR -- This game has left me feeling mixed at the end. Somewhat annoying gameplay but strong story. If you read ominous books and are okay with a bit of a slower moving character and story, including cutscenes, you may enjoy this game. What this game did correctly is the story that it built. It is a game that does not take long to complete, and the story is immersive as much as it is enriching. You truly come to feel the things the main character felt, you start to feel surprised when she is surprised, all the works. The story is well written, and while sure, the subject matter is very touchy, I don't think that the horrible actions made by people in the story are "justified" in the story as some reviews are saying. I don't personally feel that the game portrayed the behaviors of indecent people as okay by any means. Another thing that this game did phenomenally, to the point that I was beyond impressed, is the audio. Sound and voices were very well recorded, very spatially spread out, and executed perfectly. Super huge props to the sound engineering done here -- I quite literally turned around in my chair multiple times to see if my door got opened, lol. What this game needs work on is how the game plays out. Some of the missions are a little hard to understand what to do. On one of the days, you are left without your map, communication device, and no clear idea of what to do next, which took me a long time to figure out where to go -- this made progressing that chapter a roadblock. If you are like me, the type that prefers to not google what to do next in a game and figure it out on your own, that may come a bit difficult in one specific part of the game. The rest of the game is relatively straightforward in what to do or where to go next, as you have a guide. As well as all of that, some of the cutscenes are very long with no possibility to skip. There is sometimes a lot of time between two sentences, leading to unnecessary breaks in the conversational flow. It ends up being a 2 minute conversation taking 5 minutes, which is kind of cumbersome to sit through. The main character also walks and moves incredibly slow -- this also makes exploration in the setting of the game quite cumbersome as well at times when you have to travel longer distances. All in all, if you are okay with more suspense and slower-paced gameplay telling a book-like story, this game is great to buy and play through when it is on sale. I would definitely recommend it for a night that you are indecisive on what to play and want something more relaxed.