Exploratory mystery Gone Home reaches launch destinations today

Written by Jack Allin — August 15, 2013 at 12:20

What do you call a game with plenty of exploration but no combat and no puzzles other than unravelling the grand mystery of what went wrong? You call it Gone Home, that's what, an experimental investigative adventure released today by The Fullbright Company.

Katie Greenbriar is coming home. She's been away for a year, backpacking through Europe. But when she arrives at the family home in the summer of 1995, it's clear that something has gone terribly wrong. The house is dark and deserted, with no sign of her parents or little sister. Where is everybody, and what happened here? To find answers to these questions, Katie must thoroughly root through the house and piece together the mystery of her family's disappearance.

A finalist in the 2013 Independent Games Festival for Excellence in Narrative, Gone Home forsakes traditional puzzle-solving, instead emphasizing free-roaming exploration though its real-time 3D environments. As you rummage through every nook and cranny, you'll discover notes and audio journals that not only shine light on the events that preceded your arrival, but also paint a dramatic picture of the family you left behind.

Gone Home will be available today exclusively for download either from Steam or directly from the official website for Windows, Mac, and Linux. To learn more about the game, check out our recent recent preview.