Lantern

Lantern is a game that will turn out to be much more than you think. In appearance, it’s a first-person exploration game in which you have to travel through a vast open world in search for a way of fixing your car so that you can return home. However, in essence, it’s a journey about finding yourself and meaning in the choices you make.

The way you perceive Lantern solely depends on how emotional you are as a person. There is a lot to appreciate about the game, but its content will sink in differently from one person to the other.

Lantern begins with a phone call home to inform your family that you have a flat tire and that you’ll be running a bit late. Just as you end your phone call with your daughter, you ask her to put dad on the phone. You have a short chat with your husband, you tell him that you love him and that you’ll soon be home. After which, the protagonist begins narrating, in a man’s voice. You get where this is going, right?

The first instinct of survival tells us to stick to the road, and you do. It winds and turns, it goes up and down, there are no street lights, you just have a lamp to light the way. At one point, you do find one of the things you need but just one. After that, you have to enter the forest, maybe you’ll find a house, a cabin, something. But once you do, the game takes on a few more layers of depth.

Lantern features excellent audio effects, and the most you’ll be hearing is the sound of the rain. It’s everywhere; it pours, and it fills the forest with a subtle mist. It’s night, but your predicament seems to be soothing, and as you find engraved stone slabs, you start to feel as if the game is a confession.

What initially seemed to be a casual game slowly transforms into a true mystery. Who wrote the text in the stone and why is it there? Where do the forest roads lead and what is that voice you keep hearing at times. Are you alone in that vast space? Or maybe you’re in your crashed car, unconscious, having an outer body experience… It’s hard to tell.

From a visual point of view, Lantern is good, almost beautiful if you find low-poly graphics appealing. Nonetheless, its atmosphere is excellent and it greatly improves on every aspect of the experience you get out of the game.

Lantern is a game you play whenever you feel the need to be with your thoughts. Put on a pair of good headphones, turn up the volume and just walk through the trees.