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Parents' Guide to

Those Who Remain

By Chad Sapieha, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 15+

Spooky game has disturbing imagery, blood, naked monster.

Game PlayStation 4 , Windows , Xbox One 2020
Those Who Remain Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this game.

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What’s It About?

Edward is a man in crisis in THOSE WHO REMAIN, a horror adventure set in the nighttime darkness of a rural American town. That darkness harbors shadowy creatures with piercing blue eyes who will kill Edward if he takes one step out of the light. And they aren't his only problem. It's revealed early on that Edward has been cheating on his wife and that this double life is tearing him apart. Should he be forgiven? Before that question can be answered, Edward has to determine the fates of several other people, such as a boy who, addled by the demise of his older brother, begins bullying a girl, resulting in her death. Should he be punished, condemned to a fiery fate in Hell, or forgiven? That's up to you, and your decisions will impact the game's conclusion. But getting to the end requires navigating many of the town's shadowy, mostly deserted buildings, scouring the environment for information and objects needed to solve contextual puzzles, and always staying in the light.

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say: Not yet rated
Kids say: Not yet rated

It's best to be in a forgiving frame of mind while playing this one, and not just because you're presented with plenty of situations where you'll be judging the fate of characters who have done wrong. Those Who Remain is an ambitious attempt to create a thoughtful horror experience that makes players really consider what's right, what's wrong, and if and when people who've made mistakes deserve a chance to redeem themselves. You'll be torn up over the decisions you have to make, mainly because Edward is a deeply flawed protagonist desperate to be forgiven. The notion of using darkness as a deadly, physical manifestation of fear and evil is, if not terribly original, at least compelling, and makes for some interesting puzzles -- especially in moments when you travel through a Twilight Zone-style light door into a mirror dimension where you can move objects and change things that will remain changed in the real world.

Unfortunately, all this ambition clearly outstrips the game's budget. Muddy looking graphics, frequent technical issues, middling writing, and stale voice acting put a damper on things, forcing unavoidable, unfavorable comparisons to horror games made with more time, resources, and quality assurance testing. While it's always nice to see a game that makes exploration and puzzle solving its focus rather than mindless shooting or hacking and slashing, an extra level of care needs to be put into these games' mechanics to make them compelling. Opening endless empty drawers in hopes of finding something useful and trying to edge around corners looking for a light switch without any indication as to how close you're getting to the instantly lethal darkness just isn't much fun -- especially when death means reverting to a distant saved game that forces you to begin exploring the current area from scratch. Those Who Remain is like a new dish created by an inexperienced chef haphazardly combining a variety of his favorite flavors: laudable in aspiration, but unlikely to prove tasty to very many people.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

  • Families can talk about violence in the media. Is the impact of the violence in Those Who Remain affected by the focus on disturbing moments, creepiness, and bizarre imagery instead of constant blood and gore? Why do things that are out of the ordinary tend to put us on edge? Would the impact be different if the game was more graphic instead of creepy?

  • If you do something bad, how can you convince both yourself and others that you're not a bad person? How can you prove that you understand why what you did was wrong and that you'll try not to do it again?

Game Details

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