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Dear Esther: Landmark Edition
Developer The Chinese Room, Robert Briscoe
Dear Esther is a 2012 adventure game developed and published by The Chinese Room. First released in 2008 as a free modification for the Source game engine, the game was entirely redeveloped for a commercial release in 2012. The commercial version was released for Microsoft Windows in February 2012 and OS X in May 2012; ports for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One were released by Curve Digital in September 2016. Dear… From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
363 reactions from 4 sources (Steam reviews, Bluesky, Lemmy, Mastodon) · newest Nov 4, 2026 · last updated Nov 5, 2026 · How this works
Audience score
72
Fresh
171 positive · 67 negative
95% range 66–77%
| Source | + | − | = |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steam reviews | 171 | 67 | 0 |
| Bluesky * | 32 | 10 | 61 |
| Lemmy * | 3 | 0 | 13 |
| Mastodon * | 0 | 0 | 6 |
* shown, not counted in the score (label accuracy below our 85% bar or not yet audited).
Steam's own rating
Mostly Positive
2,725 of 3,854 reviews positive (all languages, per Valve)
What players are saying
74% recommend · 165 yes, 59 no
Counted from the reviewers’ own thumbs up/down on the 224 English Steam reviews we collected, not by the AI. Valve’s all-language rating: Mostly Positive (5,671 of 7,603 positive).
Some reviewers criticize the story as vague, pretentious, or unengaging, and the gameplay as too minimal. [1][2][3] Many players find the atmosphere, visuals, and narration deeply moving, especially for those in a reflective mood. [4][5][6]
Liked
Representative posts
- [1]
Atmosphere is cool. I respect it for historically being one of the pioneers of the walking simulator genre (which I don't dislike), Although, the game tries too hard to seem smart, and ends up being unintelligible in the end. It is not like, "Oh I guess it is too deep for me to understand" kind of a game, but rather it tries to hide away the story in pretentious ways. That just makes its story a bad story, not a …
- [19]
The negative reviews confuse me. It seems like the world has gone mad with unspoken and unmet expectations. The "game" is beautiful for what it is. It has no action button, no jump, no sprint, no crouch. The player doesn't interact with the game, the game interacts with the player. If your mind is closed, how will ideas get in?
- [4]
This game is very important to me - it came to me at a time when I needed solace, and something in the story spoke to me at a deep level. Notes: * This is the epitome of "walking simulator." It is closer to a visual novella or digital art than what many would define as a game. This is also an early iteration of the artform, so if you see this and think "Stanley's Parable," you would need to dial it back a few years …
- [20]
Dear Esther, I finally got around to playing your game. It was a pretty middle-of-the-road experience. I'm sorry to say that, but it's true. The game felt more like an amusement park ride where... not much actually happens. Okay, things do happen, but I just couldn't connect with your British narrator. He reads the lines more like an audiobook than someone reminiscing about his maybe-dead partner. It might work for …
- [5]
Dear Esther is one of the best walking simulator games I have played. The gameplay is simple but the atmosphere and story kept me interested for all gameplay. The island looks very beautiful, but also dark and gloomy, just like the story. I liked the artistic design the most, especially the cave areas. They looked amazing and gave a strong feeling while exploring. The narration and environment work really well …
Summarised from 34 of the 337 public posts collected about this game; every point cites the posts behind it ([n] opens the post) and the split is counted from the posts’ own ratings. Updated Oct 11, 2026. How summaries are made
RottenBot@rottenbot · automated account
Players who liked Dear Esther: Landmark Edition talk about beautiful, atmospheric environments and visuals; those who didn't talk about story is too vague or pretentious for some. Which matters more to you?
Critics, per Wikipedia
The original free release of Dear Esther was selected for the Animation Exhibition at the 2008 Prix Ars Electronica and made Mod DB's top 100 mods of 2008. In 2009, the game won the award for Best World/Story at the IndieCade Independent Game awards. Reviewing the game for Honest Gamers in 2009, Lewis Denby praised the game's original tone, saying that the game "taps into an emotion that few games dare to approach: unhappiness" and stated that Curry's soundtrack created "an impressively ethereal atmosphere". Despite commendations for its premise and story, the original mod release received complaints of poor level design and numerous glitches or bugs in moving about the terrain. The 2012…
From the “Reception” section of Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Critic context only — not part of the audience score.
Reactions
60 of 363 · most liked firstTo be fair, Dear Esther is the Duchamp's Fountain of video games, presenting something that clearly isn't a game as if it were a game, in order to make us question what makes something a game. Instead we got people accusing every first-person adventure game of not being a game.
neutral · AI labelView post →playing Dear Esther. it is much better than i remember, and the only thing distracting me while i play is how angry i keep getting that this game is *still* accused of somehow being impenetrably pretentious. it is as accessible as any book you read in high school. fucking ridiculous
positive · AI labelView post →Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 has been quietly rebuilt by Dear Esther developer The Chinese Room with 'different gameplay mechanics and RPG systems'. This certainly isn't what I expected. The troubled Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2, which I'd just about given up on, is now set to release next fall, over four years after its initial intended launch. Paradox Interactive has tapped The Chinese Room, developer of Dear Esther and Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, as the studio to…
neutral · AI labelView post →Duchamp's Fountain becomes art by forcing us to discuss the boundaries of art. Dear Esther becomes a game if you choose to treat figuring out the boundaries of games as a game. You can also treat figuring out the boundaries of art as a game. Duchamp's Fountain is now a game. Discuss.
neutral · AI labelView post →I just got reminded of Dear Esther (2012), a game that shaped me in my early career as a games artist. It opened the door to the debate on whether this could even be considered a game or just interactive poetic art. The soundtrack truly haunts me with goosebumps and nostalgia. Play it please! 💜
positive · AI labelView post →i should like to replay Dear Esther. i would always fight hard for that game in casual conversation. it would drive me nuts how people talked about it. but im a lot older now and maybe everyone else is right and im wrong
neutral · AI labelView post →The negative reviews confuse me. It seems like the world has gone mad with unspoken and unmet expectations. The "game" is beautiful for what it is. It has no action button, no jump, no sprint, no crouch. The player doesn't interact with the game, the game interacts with the player. If your mind is closed, how will ideas get in?
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →[Complete] Small keys giveaway (5 games). Hello :) As the title said, a small Steam keys givaway. The keys are coming from Humble or Fanatical. **One game per person, first one to comment the game title gets it !** ~~Drawful 2 - https://store.steampowered.com/app/442070/Drawful_2/~~ ~~Hotshot Racing - https://store.steampowered.com/app/609920/Hotshot_Racing/~~ ~~Dear Esther: Landmark Edition - https://store.steampowered.com/app/520720/Dear_Esther_Landmark_Edition/~~ Orbital Racer -…
neutral · AI labelView post →Dear Esther, one of the first, if not the first, game that popularized the so-called "walking simulator" genre, for better or worse. You walk around a beautiful environment listening to somebody talking while listening to music, sometimes. There are no challenges, fighting or puzzles, you explore. The island featured here is an hybrid of the real Hebridean islands in Scotland. It's fairly desolate and gloomy so I wouldn't call it conventionally beautiful. It's atmospheric, though. Inside the…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This, of course, is a walking simulator. Arguably, THE walking simulator. The ancestor to the genre. "Dear Esther" feels like an attempt to create a "game" that is LitFic where others tend to be pulp (of the action/adventure kind), and as such, it strips away all action — all inter-action, even. It even goes as far as forgoing a narrative in the traditional sense, resembling more closely an epistolary novel (of the diary variety, seeing as only one party writes the letters). The narrator reads…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Atmosphere is cool. I respect it for historically being one of the pioneers of the walking simulator genre (which I don't dislike), Although, the game tries too hard to seem smart, and ends up being unintelligible in the end. It is not like, "Oh I guess it is too deep for me to understand" kind of a game, but rather it tries to hide away the story in pretentious ways. That just makes its story a bad story, not a sophisticated story.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Every game should have its own Bowl mode. Hitman Bowl. Dynasty Warriors Bowl. Ten Pin Alley Bowl. Dear Esther Bowl
neutral · AI labelView post →This isn’t a game. This is a magnificent audiovisual experience. The focus is primarily on the visuals, the atmosphere, and the emotions. It’s more like a work of art that you simply observe and admire. Some people might be confused by the lack of action elements. Those people haven’t understood the concept—this game isn’t meant for them. This is an emotional catharsis, a walk through the landscape carrying the weight of your own thoughts. Visual poetry, verses written by the wind blowing…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Dear Esther is more of an interactive experience than a traditional game, but it often feels too minimal to stay engaging. The atmosphere and narration are decent at first, but they don’t do enough to carry the entire runtime. The island is visually nice, though there’s very little actual interaction or gameplay to keep you involved. It’s short and somewhat interesting, but overall feels more like a tech demo than a fully satisfying experience.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Supposedly the first studio failed to make a fun game and they had to restart with [The Chinese Room](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chinese_Room) (Dear Esther, Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, Still Wakes the Deep). I think they are on track with it, but we got to wait longer.
neutral · AI labelView post →i think the story is just too vague to understand, its just like a poem rather than a game, i dont even know if i can call this a walking sim, theres no choices (or atleast i think there isnt) no gameplay elements just walking and listening to the guy yap
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game was insufferable. First, the (only) positive: it has several nice-looking 3D environments that were undoubtedly impressive when the game was first released and for the most part, still hold up well today. I suppose the music is all right, too. Appropriately morose pastoral airs arranged for string quartet and mournful piano. But my god, the writing, It's absolutely dreadful. A mannered, overwrought, and mealy-mouthed garble of mixed metaphors at best, and comically bad at…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →if I had to gauge my life based on video game vibes these last few weeks...I've been feeling pretty Dear Esther. yeah, not super cheery. but hey, sometimes everyone needs a busted shipment of Antacid Yoghurt, amirite? 💩💩💩 💩💀💩 💩💩💩
negative · AI labelView post →This one’s hard because nearly every game I’ve played has stamped something on me? A few answers: -Dragon Age Origins made me switch careers (to games writing) -Walking Dead s1, Spider-Man 1, + Mass Effect 3 are the only games that made me cry -Dear Esther comes to mind whenever I think of grief
neutral · AI labelView post →I remember being one of those plonkers who thought Dear Esther doesn't qualify as a game. Nowadays I consider POOLS a recent favourite of mine and it's literally just an atmospheric walking sim with no story.
positive · AI labelView post →Dear Esther is like slowly walking through an art gallery, while a British man explains what he was thinking about when drawing the picture, the environments in the game only serving as visual metaphors accompanying the narration. To most people the game really boils down to holding forward and listening to some gibberish for about an hour or so. The original Dear Esther had a certain charm to it because at the time it was considered one of the first "walking simulator" games that inspired…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →So this game is a remake of a remake of a mod for Half Life 2 😵💫 But what a mod it was! Not every mod that start a totally new genre of games. And that is what was to be called 'walking simulators'. Some hate them, some love them. I'm more on the love side 💙 So what's the game about? Well you play it and tell me 😄 The game is purposely vague and let the player figure things out for themselves. So it's more of an art-experience then your typical game. And I love it for it because it's…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →To put it succinctly, there are games now that explore every facet of human emotion. Games like Celeste explore the sense of self and self-acceptance, while being presented as a precision-platformer game. Dear Esther and SOMA examine our definitions of reality, humanity, and life. 1/
neutral · AI labelView post →When the developers mentioned Stalker as one of the inspirations, I was like "YEEEEES!" because the visuals, the atmosphere, the sound... it's soooo good, this is my type of niche, 2000s games that I love and have such a nostalgia for them.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The graphics are great and so is the music, but I found the story underwelming and the dialogue too poetic. I actually liked the commentaries version more than the game version. It was interesting to hear the creators take on the game. Anyway, it wasn't my cup of tea so I don't recommend it. However, it's a short game and barely costs anything when it's on sale, so if you're unsure you won't lose much in trying it out and, who knows, you might be one of the many people who liked it.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →"Gone Home" is definitely a favourite among many at The Chinese Room. If you're yet to experience either game, our very own "Dear Esther" and equally atmospheric "Gone Home" are currently available together in a Steam bundle at a great price - store.steampowered.com/bundle/75941...
neutral · AI labelView post →Dear Esther is a slow, atmospheric "walking simulator" that literally involves wandering—many players tag it as such then complain when the gameplay is just walking. I held W for 60 minutes listening to fragmented narration while exploring an opaque, often incomprehensible world; beautiful and moody if you like ambiguity, pointless if you want clear plot or mechanics.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It's a walking simulator, that is, you walk around the map while a story is being narrated to you. You move along a predefined path, there's no point in straying from it. Gameplay-wise there is simply no gameplay to speak of. Playing this game feels no different than watching a playthrough video. The story of the game didn't really resonate with me, and after I finished the game I forgot it completely the next day, while I still remember stories of other walking simulators from 2010s like Gone…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game is very important to me - it came to me at a time when I needed solace, and something in the story spoke to me at a deep level. Notes: * This is the epitome of "walking simulator." It is closer to a visual novella or digital art than what many would define as a game. This is also an early iteration of the artform, so if you see this and think "Stanley's Parable," you would need to dial it back a few years in terms of features. You will quite literally *only* walk in this game and…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This would have been a great game to play when it was new. Walking sims have come a long way since then but they do have games like Dear Esther to thank for their current success. Worth a play through for the sake of being a piece of video game history.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Tons of video game soundtracks on flash sale for one hour: bit.ly/3VlDB2D #ad Includes vinyl for - Temtem - Asterigos - Dear Esther - Shadowrun - Evergate - BPM - Pine - Never Yield - Cris Tales - Going Under - Dyling Light 2 Lots more
neutral · AI labelView post →if I see another game "inspired by the Hebrides" centred on an old lighthouse I'm gonna write a manifesto titled Dear Esther And Its Consequences and start mailing bombs to game developers
negative · AI labelView post →When I first played Dear Esther, a long time ago, I was inexperienced and young. I condemned the game because I thought the concept was stupid, and that it waxed lyrical around vague nonsense statements designed to sound deeper than it was. Since then, I've played many more "walking sims" as the genre Dear Esther created is called, I've experienced a lot more storytelling - nuanced, vague, implied - and i've grown as a person. I thought that now was a good time to re-visit this game, to see if…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Dear Esther is one of the best walking simulator games I have played. The gameplay is simple but the atmosphere and story kept me interested for all gameplay. The island looks very beautiful, but also dark and gloomy, just like the story. I liked the artistic design the most, especially the cave areas. They looked amazing and gave a strong feeling while exploring. The narration and environment work really well together, and the game slowly pulls you into its mystery. If you like atmospheric…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →GAMEDEV RESHARE: Share 1 image of a game that gave inspiration for your current project Mine is 'Dear Esther' - and while the style is vastly different- the inspiration came from being able to tell a good narrative in a game. #gamedev #indiedev #indiegame #indiegamedev #indiegames
positive · AI labelView post →That is still so fucking mysterious to me. The Chinese Room makes exactly one type of game, which is "guided-interactive narrative experience" to be diplomatic. The exact opposite of Bloodlines 1. Dear Esther, Ozzy Mandus And The Crankhog Machine, their entire portfolio follows the same formula: strong in art direction, atmosphere, and story; weak in gameplay. Even a hit like Still Wakes The Deep only takes gameplay as far as "throw object to make the thing look away". Their gameplay systems…
neutral · AI labelView post →It was a pretty game to look at and had great music but the slow walking speed really discourage me from exploring too far off the main path. Like others have said, the narration is well voiced but the story was very vague and cryptic to the point where I kind of zoned out quite often while the narrator was talking and was just looking at all the scenery instead. I heard all the words but it wasn't very coherently told. Maybe that's the point and we are supposed to be as confused as the…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I mean... it doesn't make it fun _**to you**_. Many people do genuienly enjoy games that, to whatever extent, feature a whole lot of walking, with very scenic or stylized environments, or that use walking itself and not much more actual gameplay mechanics... to tell a compelling story. Dear Esther. The Stanley Parable. Not much... 'gameplay' going on there. But a lot of people like those games. There are even like... basically just finely crafted GMod maps that are more or less just…
neutral · AI labelView post →Choose 20 games that greatly influence you. One game per day, for 20 days. No explanations, no reviews, no particular order. Day 18: Dear Esther #GameChallenge #DearEsther #IndieGames
positive · AI labelView post →In addition to game of the year Kentucky Route Zero, I'm adding Gone Home, Dear Esther, & What Remains of Edith Finch. There are so many more.
neutral · AI labelView post →This game is unfathomably gorgeous, and the story is definitely something, but this movement speed is horrific. I understand it was done as an artistic choice to allow the narrative to sink in, and make the player feel immersed and one with the environment, but the graphics and narrative do enough to slow down and pace the player. Forcing you to move slower than a glacier feels more like the developers spitting on you and telling you it's raining. Feeling like you're missing out on exploration…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Dear Esther, this was boring af... Walking simulators live and die by their interesting and beautiful locations. And besides the caves, it has little eye candy, 70% of your 1-1.5 hr walking takes place on a barren, wind-swept piece of rock. All while you are are bombarded by audiologs of short stories, musings and pseudo-intellectual pretentious drivel. There is no coherent story or narrative here for you to experience. The game poses as something revolutionary, but I failed to find the juice…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Dear Esther was the first I played, that soundtrack is great
positive · AI labelView post →They could have written a book, make a short film, or an animation. Anything would have been better than calling this a game. In this thing you walk, walk, even a turtle is faster. The only interaction you have is the menu options. There's no route, nothing to choose, or the feeling that you've done something, like in some FMVs or even visual novels. It's a patchwork quilt that tries to make sense of just by looking at it, but I don't think it's enough to call it a game just because I…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I've been playing this on and off for the better part of a decade, and I tend to come back to it when grief visits me. It's been a pretty integral companion to navigating some of the scarier parts of life, and while it gets a lot of heat for being "not a real game" or "not having replay value" I personally think it's a seminal masterpiece and one that I hold very close to my heart.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Pseudo intellectual game, At least it was quick. 3/10
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I actually had no real interest in VTM: Bloodlines 2 at first, but I have been a fan of The Chinese Room since Dear Esther in 2012, so seeing reviews say it’s not really an RPG but a narrative-driven game, in line with the studio’s usual output, shot it straight onto my must-play list. It was okay!
neutral · AI labelView post →we should be talking about Street Fighter the way we talk about Dear Esther, and i don't mean the lore, i mean, like, "fighting games are a contest in restricting the other player's ability to interact with the game to a much greater extent than even other PvP genres, here's what that means" or w/e
neutral · AI labelView post →Played Spiritfarer today until my controller died. What a gorgeous game. I'm glad I saved it until the right headspace. My experiences with Dear Esther and Kentucky Route Zero were that I bounce off super heavy games when they're not what I need, but when I do they have a crit multiplier against me.
neutral · AI labelView post →... than walking sims and art games along the lines of Dear Esther (2008) and Gone Home (2013). While it won countless accolades and nominations (up to and including a Grammy nom for Best Score in a Visual Medium), I'd seen more traditional gamers turn up their noses at its "pretentiousness."
neutral · AI labelView post →Dear Esther, I finally got around to playing your game. It was a pretty middle-of-the-road experience. I'm sorry to say that, but it's true. The game felt more like an amusement park ride where... not much actually happens. Okay, things do happen, but I just couldn't connect with your British narrator. He reads the lines more like an audiobook than someone reminiscing about his maybe-dead partner. It might work for some people, but it just didn't work for me. I have to say, Esther, your…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →A beautiful experience, testament to the power of metaphor over literal description. Something akin to being a tourist in another's mind.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →ADHD’s worst nightmare. It looks nice in a distinctly Source engine kind of way. Solid voice acting with pacing unafraid to let you soak in the silence. My only problem is with the payoff; it’s too vague. By the time you get there you would have envisioned a much better ending yourself. And I’ve just read that the narration is semi-randomised which explains why it felt like picking up collectibles in the wrong order.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Auriea Harvey and Michaël Samyn have been developing video games as interactive art instillations since 1999. The success of games like Gone Home and Dear Esther proved to them that their vision of a game for gamers was viable. store.steampowered.com/app/287600/S...
neutral · AI labelView post →Aesthetically the game is beautiful, I will give it that much. As such, if you want a walking sim around an island and caves this might be the game for you. I tried to pay attention to the story and explore where I could, however, I found both to kind of just be confusing and/or boring. Honestly if you do want to play this game, maybe try with the director comments. maybe im just too dumb to understand the story or something T_T
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I usually only make point review with pros and cons, but I think this one deserves litle bit more. This is not a game, but an experience. For the sake of the achievements I have played this game twice, and I have to say that at the first go, I have only got parts of the story, as I couldnt just logic my way through it because the game was constantly throwing emotional sticks under my feet, that made me feel things and think about IRL life. Even games with strong and emotional story dont do…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →That's good and I hope well for them but also it's hilarious to me to describe them as "known for Still Wakes the Deep," a game I've never even looked at, while they made Dear Esther, Amnesia: Machine for Pigs, and Everybody's Gone to the Rapture. Like saying "Blizzard, known for Blackthorne" 🤣🤣🤣
neutral · AI labelView post →1. Dear Esther The game starts off on an island and it seems really depressing. I got extremely bad vibes and immediately stopped playing. Mentally could never go back to it.
negative · AI labelView post →There are three kinds of caves in videogames: Caves where something is glowing and lighting the cave and it is not important (sucks; see every game) Caves where something is glowing and lighting the cave and is the only important thing in there (okay; see Dear Esther) Dark caves (best; see TotK)
neutral · AI labelView post →I cannot for the life of me finish this game, let alone recommend it. Its slow, too slow in every way. Too slow for its own good, and after the first half hour of slowly walking around, I tried slowly walking off every cliff to die, just because that was more exciting than listening to someone drone on and on about a whole lot of nothing. After a few dialogue cues, it sounds like whining and it began grating on my ears worse than the dialogue and accents in the Black mirror 2 game. I got…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →
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