In 2015 Sam Barlow released Her storyessentially an interactive movie that played as a modern twist on the FMV games of the 80’s and 90’s. Barlow has continued in this style with his next projects, with 2019’s Telling lies extending what he has established with Her story and the newly released Immortality take his ideas to a new level.
Immortality collects hundreds of clips from three unfinished fictional indie films from the 60s, 70s and 90s, all of which feature Hollywood star Marissa Marcel, who has since disappeared. The ultimate goal of Immortality is to find out what happened to Marissa Marcel, and players accomplish this by watching her old clips for clues.
Like Her story and Telling lies for the, Immortality is more interactive movie than a video game, although it is more interactive than Barlow’s previous titles. In Her storyplayers progressed by picking and searching keywords to discover new clips, but that system is gone Immortality. Instead, players use the game’s image mode which pauses the images and displays a cursor. Players can click on almost anything they want in the scene, and then they will be cut into an entirely different clip. So for example, if Immortality players click on a blue ashtray, they are taken to another clip with the same blue ashtray or at least something similar.
Immortality‘s match-cut mechanism works well, and it’s surprising how few restrictions are placed on the player. Pretty much anything in a scene can be clicked, and it will almost always lead Immortality players to a brand new clip.
Immortality players will soon be able to watch dozens of clips separated by three different eras. Barlow and his team went to great lengths to recreate the visual style of each decade that the clips represent, and it’s fun putting together not only the plot of Marissa Marcel’s three films, but the behind-the-scenes drama as well. . It’s an interesting exercise in non-linear storytelling, although only those who devote themselves to flipping through the clips will ever really understand what’s going on.
Talking too much about Immortality‘s story will completely ruin the experience for anyone planning to play it, but it’s clear early on that the story is more than the superficial mystery of Marissa Marcel’s disappearance. Players will have to sift through hours of footage to get all the answers they want, although the nature of the game means there will likely be many who go on without discovering the biggest revelations.
without spoiling anything, Immortality have players manipulate the clips beyond clicking objects, and through that manipulation, players will begin to unravel the greater mystery. This first discovery is Immortality‘s best, most memorable moment, and so anyone with an Xbox Game Pass subscription on hand should definitely make the effort to play the game to experience it for themselves. The problem is that the game is a one trick pony, and once players discover the gimmick, it stops being an intriguing puzzle and becomes a chore.
After players find out Immortality‘s gameplay gimmick, they will feel compelled to go back through the hundreds of clips and implement them in each clip. This is necessary to find out what is really going on in Immortality, and it’s boring work. There’s a brilliant story buried in the game, but players will have to do some serious digging to get to it. And since some of the most important clips are extremely well hidden, we can safely say that many of the Immortalitycredits with only the vaguest idea what the story was about. They can spend hours sifting through these movie clips and get away with little to show except confused, frustrated, and maybe a little creepy.
Immortality is more horror than Sam Barlow’s previous games, with some really disturbing and terrifying scenes. The period-accurate cinematography in the movies adds to the eerie atmosphere, and the game’s gimmick is put to good use to shock the player. A sense of fear pervades Immortality, from the very first clip of Marissa Marcel talking on a late night talk show to when players reach the credits. Nothing should be taken away from the atmosphere Barlow and his team managed to cultivate here, but other areas could have used more work.
ImmortalityFor example, the dialogue is obtuse, pretentious and often bizarre. On the one hand, it lends itself well to the atmosphere the game is trying to achieve. On the other hand, it can be distracting and take players out of the experience. The behind-the-scenes footage is meant to show the real people behind the roles, but the actors don’t really come across in these scenes, partly because they say things that no one would actually say, and partly because of the performances. It’s still obvious that they all play a part, even if they’re meant to be themselves, and that hurts the immersion. The talk show scenes are an exception to this; they’re convincing enough that if shown to someone out of context, they’d have no idea the clips weren’t from an actual late night talk show.
In the end, someone’s enjoyment of Immortality will depend entirely on two things: whether they like arthouse movies and whether they have the patience to flip through over 200 clips of mostly boring visuals to get a full picture of the story. The story itself is interesting enough that players will be forced to return to the game to look for more clues, even if they get bored further, but in terms of gameplay it doesn’t offer much more than its one genius trick. Immortality is something that everyone should at least try through Xbox Game Pass, but they need to understand that the game will demand a lot from them and not always give much in return.
Immortality is out now for PC and Xbox Series X. Game Rant played the Xbox Series X version for this review.
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