The Vanishing of Ethan Carter (2014)

The Vanishing of Ethan Carter opens by basically telling you...

“Hey, we’re not going to hold your hand.”

Cool, respect.

The problem is, sometimes it doesn’t just refuse to hold your hand. It lets go, walks into the woods, changes its phone number, and leaves you wondering whether you missed a clue or accidentally wandered into the wrong zip code.

You play as Paul Prospero, a detective drawn to Red Creek Valley after receiving a letter from a boy named Ethan Carter. From the moment you step onto the railway tracks surrounded by trees, the atmosphere does exactly what it needs to do. It’s peaceful, eerie, and just wrong enough to make you suspicious of every abandoned building, every distant sound, and every suspiciously pretty stretch of wilderness.

And good lord, this thing is gorgeous.

Even years later, Ethan Carter still has the kind of visual confidence that makes you stop moving just to look around which I did on a number of occasions. No HUD clutter. No combat prompts. No giant glowing arrow screaming “mystery this way, genius.” Just forests, mountains, crumbling homes, mines, sunlight, shadows, and a whole lot of “yeah, something terrible definitely happened here.”

The sound design helps sell that unease too. It’s not a cheap scare machine, and I appreciated that. This isn’t the kind of horror game that throws a loud noise at you and expects applause. It’s more interested in mood, suggestion, and that slow little stomach-drop feeling when a place feels empty for all the wrong reasons.

The actual detective mechanics are a cool idea. You investigate scenes, find misplaced objects, restore what happened, then arrange moments in the right order so the past can play out in front of you. When it works, it’s genuinely satisfying. You’re not just being told what happened... you’re piecing together a memory from the wreckage.

But here’s the rub: the “no hand-holding” philosophy cuts both ways.

Sometimes it creates immersion. Other times, it creates pure “wait, what am I supposed to touch?” energy. The game’s world is so detailed and realistic that important objects don’t always stand out. A valve might be interactable. Another identical-looking bit of machinery might be set dressing. A clue might be nearby. Or maybe you were supposed to solve something twenty mins ago and the game just happily let you stroll past it like a fool.

Which, rude.

I’m all for trusting the player. I don’t need a tutorial mascot popping up every thirty seconds to explain buttons. But there’s a difference between rewarding observation and leaving players to wander in circles because the visual language isn’t as clear as the atmosphere is pretty.

That happened to me enough to sour the experience a bit. Not destroy it. Just chip away at the spell. And for a game this dependent on immersion, that matters. Every time I had to backtrack, second-guess myself, or wonder whether I was missing a mechanic the game never properly introduced, I was pulled out of the mystery and into troubleshooting mode.

Narratively, I’m also mixed. The story has strong ideas and some memorable surreal detours, but I’m not sure it fully landed for me. The tone is fascinating, the setting is excellent, and the supernatural elements add texture, but the emotional payoff didn’t quite hit as hard as the presentation promised. It feels like a game that’s often more powerful in fragments than as a complete picture.

Still, I get why people love it. There’s a lot here that works. Red Creek Valley feels like a real place with old wounds buried under the scenery. The atmosphere is fantastic. The visual direction is ridiculous. And when the investigation pieces click into place, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter becomes exactly the kind of eerie, thoughtful, story-driven adventure I wanted it to be.

I just wish it didn’t mistake “letting me fly” for “shoving me out of the nest and hoping for the best.”

It’s short, striking, and worth playing if you’re into psychological mysteries. But for me, it sits firmly in that “admired it more than I connected with it” category.

A game that wants you to get lost in its world, even when getting lost is exactly the issue.

👍 POSITIVES

• Lovely-looking world that still holds up surprisingly well
• Excellent atmosphere without relying on cheap scares
• Strong sound design and environmental mood
• Detective reconstruction scenes are satisfying when they click
• No HUD keeps the experience immersive

🤏 MIXED

• Minimal guidance helps the mood until it starts wasting your time
• Surreal story detours add flavor, but not all of them feel equally connected
• Short length works for pacing, though it can feel slight

👎 NEGATIVES

• Interactable objects are not always clear
• Easy to miss key puzzle steps and wander too far ahead
• Some mechanics feel under-explained
• Emotional impact didn’t hit as hard as the atmosphere suggested

I was blown away by how cool the game looks and spent first hour or so just making screenshots and looking at stuff. Then I found the magic doorways puzzle, which also impressed me.

Unfortunately, after those 2 hours of gameplay, it became more and more of a walking chore and the charm has worn off.

I'd rate this 2.5 stars if I could just for that initial experience.

I'm a stop and smell the roses type-of-guy so I really enjoy these so-called walking simulators anyway. However there's more to this game than just walk right through while enjoying a well crafted story, this one has a cool clue-searching mechanic to use when trying to figure out who did what, why, and in what succession? It has wonderful HUD-less graphics and the writing fits the tone and theme well, as the story had me engaged early. I also liked just moving around the game's universe, in which you're dropped without any prompts or tutorials whatsoever. Highly recommended if you like a great story and the occasional fright, and to solve riddles at your own pace while gazing at beautiful scenery.

[4] / [5]

Immediately upon starting this game I got struck by its visuals. I try not to look up too much about a game before playing it, but in this case I was genuinely surprised I hadn’t seen this mentioned anywhere. Landscape wise, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter looks impressive, and I’m bringing this up first because it was, along with the minimalistic soundscape, the thing that got me immersed straight away into the game’s somewhat hypnotic tone.

From there, I got sucked into a really interesting story. It doesn’t take long for it to hook you due to its strong narration and enigmatic beats. The narrative in this game blends elements of horror, suspense and drama, and even though it doesn’t land all its emotional punches it’s still very engaging, making you want to continue playing to unravel it fully. There is also a powerful turning point that elevated the game all the more to me, although in hindsight, maybe I should have seen it coming. I also liked the puzzle mechanics, where you have to figure out how to appropriately ‘arrange’ story moments in order reconstruct past timelines and get a glimpse of the events you’re unfurling.

What I didn’t like was how much the game runs with its ‘no hand-holding’ concept. It clearly states so in the beginning, but I think it takes it too far because it highlights a design contradiction: yes, the setting is small, but it still has a clear open nature to it. Because of this, it can be frustratingly easy to miss things, since comparatively you’re working within a chunky space and there isn’t all that much to find. The lack of telegraphing for the most part that doesn’t play well with this design as it’s almost screaming at you to play with a guide, and I’m fairly certain this wasn’t the intent when they made it that way.

Still, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter is well worth a gander. Its tone and story are memorable, its puzzles are solid, the narration is close to impeccable, and on the whole, it manages to step away from its problems far enough with the quality it delivers on other aspects. I enjoyed it enough to consider a second playthrough, which is something I rarely consider with these types of short narrative adventure games. 7.5/10

This one has been sitting in my backlog for many years. I'm a huge fan of walking simulators and that genre, so naturally, I had to check out this one.

I was very pleased with the experience overall. The game looks stunning and the music is amazing. I think where this game shines the most is how it does the "no hand-holding" absolutely right. You are offered no hints, clues, or directions about what to do next, and it is possible to just walk through the whole seamless map without actually completing any of the mysteries. The level design is clear enough to figure out what to do, as long as one takes the time to explore.

The mysteries and puzzles are the main and best parts of the game. The overall story is engaging and captivating. I did not however feel that I developed any specifically strong bonds to any of the characters.

The presentation was amazing and the puzzles felt fun and engaging. The game feels a bit too short to give the story its full potential. Overall it's a great and engaging experience.

Over n' out.

After a few hours of play, i desinstalled it, but after that a saw a video and i understand that i played it in a bad way. In fact, the game say on start :

• "ok guy, i'll not help you because blablblabla... (in fact the dev was bored about making a tutoriel to explain machanics.) And there is a special mechanic because there is a puzzle where you need to use a little rock : put a rock here. I said : Guy there is million of rock, i can't get any one of them, witch one do you want ?! Finaly the video i saw, the player explain that you need to stay a long time on a puzzle watching it and then it reveal where is the object you need ! I said : "Oh damn u, i won't reinstall your game guy ! MAKE A FUCKING TUTORIAL

This game should have been right up my alley. Beautiful scenery, mysterious goings-on and some Lovecraftian vibes. However, I learned that while I thought I'd like the no-hand-holding style, I found out that either I'm very bad at exploring on my own, or that directing the player (or enabling the player to do things at their own order and pace) was not something the developers of tCoEC are good at.

I found not enough clues to go on and found myself walking back and forth across (the very beautiful, but very linear) scenery. The puzzles did not strike me as interesting and I had to be told by a website what the supernatural ability my character had was. In fact, once I found myself going back to a walk-through website the third time, I decided to call it quits. The plot teasing was quite interesting, but I wasn't making enough headway, or sure what I was even looking for.

Bye-bye, Ethan!

While playing Everybody’s gone to rapture this game was in my mind the whole time. The vanishing of Ethan Carter is also another walking simulator, genre which everybody has their own opinion. For me, this is one of the examples how good walking simulator should be, interesting story and good visuals and world that doesn’t seem like you would take forever to walk across.

You step on shoes of paranormal investigator Paul Prospero who is visiting the town Red Creek valley because of inspiring fan letter from 16-year old Ethan Carter. While on his visit in Red Creek, Paul Prospero starts to encounter dark and unsettling paranormal phenomenon and violent activities that has taken place in the town. While investigating these happening Paul starts to learn moreabout Ethan’s family dark secret…

I solely picked this game because I had heard this one was good detective horror mystery. Minus couple small jump scares (that I think wasn’t even supposed to be one. I just stupidly walked to them) I didn’t think game was scary until one part…that one fucking part…WHAT THE FUCK..this game supposed to be a slow pace walking simulator. Okay, I admit I’m not very good with any type of horror game, I get scared easily. I really like scary stories, movies, pictures etc… but games. I can’t handle those, I like horror games but when somebody else is playing and I can just watch.

Because this one asshole scary part I didn’t finish the game..

okay I did but like one month later in midday sun.

the ending was surprising and whole story kept me engaged.

9/10 (-1 because it made me scream)

P.s This game is short 4 hours approx. I’m not one to give minus points of length if I felt I got enough this one I did.

I came into this gaming experience without really knowing what to expect. Despite never having heard of the horror adventure title from indie games studio The Astronauts before, I bought it during a Steam sale without viewing much more than the description and a brief trailer. As someone who likes to research games in depth before committing to a purchase (and as a notorious 'fraidy cat), this was an unusual move for me.

Certain key phrases really sold it to me on the store page: 'immersive storytelling'; 'inspired by the weird fiction from the early twentieth century'; 'atmosphere, mood, and the essential humanity of our characters'. Sometimes, when it's right, you just know.

I wasn't disappointed.

To see the rest of my review, please take a mosey at my blog. Thanks!

I came into this gaming experience without really knowing what to expect. Despite never having heard of the horror adventure title from indie games studio The Astronauts before, I bought it during a Steam sale without viewing much more than the description and a brief trailer. As someone who likes to research games in depth before committing to a purchase (and as a notorious 'fraidy cat), this was an unusual move for me.

Certain key phrases really sold it to me on the store page: 'immersive storytelling'; 'inspired by the weird fiction from the early twentieth century'; 'atmosphere, mood, and the essential humanity of our characters'. Sometimes, when it's right, you just know.

I wasn't disappointed.

To see the rest of my review, please take a mosey at my blog. Thanks!

I've bought this without knowing exactly what it is apart from hearing mixed emotions. Some called it bad, other claimed that this game is misunderstood. I hoped to end up in the "I liked the game" camp though sadly I did not.

First of - this is barely a game. It's beautiful, extremely so. The visual effects are just gorgeous. The models are so detailed that up to this date I'd say this is the best looking "tech demo" I've seen. But sadly it fails hardly as a game.

So why it is that? I don't really mind narrative games, I don't mind experimental ones. But this is lacking so much in game design aspect. As a player you start out at a spot with a short story introduction. A very short and not really telling you what to do. You start walking - everything is pretty but nothing is explained. I just kept walking, looking around and so on and later on learned that I've missed 3 out of 5 or six puzzles. Nothing told me that. There was also almost nothing explaining the game mechanics or even subtly prompting me to do anything. Arriving at the old abandoned village game suddenly introduces teleporting doors with some spell - why? how? How does that fit the narrative.

At this point I was confused and had no idea what to do. I walked around for little more enjoying the views and graphic quality but was bored. Honestly I thought that was it. Had to look up reviews to see there was more. And after having a read - was not really interested in actually playing. The game just lacks any game design - forcing player to explore certain areas, hinting or suggesting some actions. Or just simply explaining itself. Really shame as it is really beautiful. Can't really recommend it.