Dear Esther Landmark Edition

(Xbox One, PlayStation 4)

FOUR years ago, a team from the University of Portsmouth threw out the rulebook of game design and made people rethink of they see video games.

The result was Dear Esther, a 90-minute experience, which shares as much – or perhaps even more – in common with films and short stories as it does with gaming.

Eschewing traditional gameplay, the first-person experience sees you simply explore an uninhabited Hebridean island while you hear fragments of letters read out to a woman named Esther in the aftermath of a car crash.

There are no tasks to complete, puzzles to solve or enemies to defeat – it is just a pure storytelling experience.

Quite an accomplishment for a project that began as an experiment using a Half-Life 2 mod.

This 'landmark edition' of The Chinese Room's Dear Esther, published by indie champions Curve Digital, sees the game released on consoles for the first time and there is also a director's cut-style developers' commentary.

There have been a few tweaks but the graphics still really stand up four years later – if you have not played it before just wait until you see the caves. The excellent sound effects will also haunt you.

What is also so interesting about Dear Esther is that it is all down to your own interpretation.

Your challenge is to make sense of who you are, where you are, what has happened in a place that could be more than meets the eye. Who said games could not aspire to be art?

DAVID MORGAN