The Drifter (2025)

I went into Drifter expecting a story set in the 1920s, but it's actually set in 1999. The premise reminded me most of Condemned: Mick was a runaway as a child, later divorced after losing his son, and returns to his hometown for his mother's funeral. Once there, he discovers homeless people are mysteriously going insane, a mysterious special forces unit is executing them, the police are hunting a serial killer—and, naturally, Mick ends up framed for the murders.

One of the game's more interesting mechanics is the "thought inventory." Alongside a traditional inventory, Mick collects thoughts represented by pictograms, which function as both the quest log and dialogue options. It's a clever system that fits the game's investigative focus.

Narratively, it has a lot in common with Ghost Trick. Whenever Mick dies, he rewinds time and gets another chance to change events. By the end, however, the game feels much closer to Zero Escape, with death serving as a way for consciousness to travel back through time. The game is also well-paced: it's long enough to fully explore its ideas without overstaying its welcome or letting its mechanics become repetitive.

Thematically, Drifter throws everything into the mix—government conspiracies, ghosts, monsters, and time travel. Surprisingly, it manages to tie most of these elements together reasonably well.

That said, a few plot points fall apart in hindsight. The friendly homeless man being stabbed with Mick's knife feels particularly forced. Neither the apparent villains nor the real antagonist has a convincing reason to kill him or frame Mick; it exists purely to give the police a reason to pursue the protagonist. Annie knocking a detective unconscious and suffering no consequences is another moment that stretches believability. I can accept time travel, but that felt harder to swallow. Finally, Mick accidentally killing Annie during a hallucination seems contrived. It's clearly meant to push him into participating in the experiment, but it doesn't fit with how visions of his son's ghost had consistently helped him up to that point.

For a while I expected the game to pull a Shutter Island twist—that Mick was actually in a psychiatric hospital, and the lab-coated antagonist was simply his doctor in reality. I'm glad it didn't go in that direction. The ending it chose was far more interesting.

At first glance — and given the release hype — it was clear this would be an old-school pixel art adventure, and that's exactly what I expected. What I didn't expect was just how far it would exceed that expectation. Adventure releases in recent years have been hit or miss. Deponia feels like a distant memory, the Wadjet Eye games are great but never quite groundbreaking. Then Loco Motive arrived as the first real highlight in years: fantastic animations, a joyful comical art style, and the feeling of a modern LucasArts game done right. For me, it was the best adventure in that tradition in decades.

The Drifter goes so far beyond that, it's not even a fair comparison.

The pixel art is immediately stunning — but screenshots simply can't convey what makes this game special. It's the incredibly dense atmosphere, the cinematic storyline, the music and sound design, and voice acting of a quality I genuinely don't think I've experienced in an adventure game before. Everything feels alive in a way that pulls you in completely and doesn't let go.

I'm currently in the seventh chapter, but I can already say without hesitation: this is the best adventure game I've played in 40 years, and easily my favourite game in a very long time.

Loco Motive won me over with its charm. The Drifter convinces on an entirely different level. Breathtaking.

It will be hard to top this as GOTY, for me. This was a masterful showing, a love-letter to the genre that took away all the best lessons from the greatest heights the genre has achieved: Beneath a Steel Sky, Day of the Tentacle, Grim Fandango, Full Throttle, Loom, LeChuck’s Revenge--there's so much clear influence, so much clear study of and respect for the most beloved the medium has to offer. And yet, there's so much new, so much special, so much different.

I won't get into spoilers, or story reviews; all I'll say is that I can easily see this becoming a classic of the genre that stands shoulder-to-shoulder as peers with the games it holds with such high esteem and with such reverence.

ahhh baby this is dripping with style. sodden and mucky with the stuff. three weeks sleeping in its own panache without a shower. I think someone loved the ending of full throttle (which they should, it's awesome!) and decided to make that the whole game, just a run of thrilling action sequences rendered in a point 'n' click interface. heard one person grouse (it's zarf, I heard zarf grouse, hi zarf I love you sorry I sat across from you at a table one time and couldn't think of anything to say, I wasn't medicated for adhd yet) that the plot hook protecting you from death makes these action scenes unsuspenseful, but I must respectfully say that I'm not sure how it's different from reloading a save? like yeah it's automated and there's a plot explanation for it but that's just streamlining what you'd have to do manually, right? iunno, maybe it just never bothers me.

so ok you're a drifter who comes home for a funeral and then a whole buncha shit goes down: murder frame-ups, kidnappings, all kinds of life-threatening shit popping off from the first scene. the quality of the animation is phenomenal so of course they couldn't actually animate everything; lotta cuts to black where the character narrates something they just did not have the time to draw at the quality they've been drawing things. this means the voice acting has to carry a lot of the drama, and the guy playing mick sure is up to the task. even the visualized stuff - which is plentiful! - is, you know, medium-framerate pixel art, and a lot of the drama comes from careful pacing and just the right pulpy melodrama in the recording booth.

I will share my handful of gripes:

• I liked the pulp mystery vibes of the early going more than the science-fiction vibes it veers into, and do kinda wish they'd stuck with something more grounded, even as the mechanics of vibe 2 are very thoughtfully explored
• they stop short of damseling/fridging the female characters but they repeatedly come so close
• the setpiece trick can't help but wear a little thin as it goes along; only so many times mick's voice can go in that particular register, or the plot can twist mid-chapter, before the effect is lessened

ok but even on that last point: without spoiling anything, they find very creative explorations of the central hook. theme and variation. they know when it's about to get stale and they goose it in creative ways.

damn near impeccable. the only reason it's not a full five stars is I do not feel particularly nourished by it. this is good pulp, through and through, but I don't see myself thinking a lot about it a few weeks from now. there's some stuff about coming to grips with the past, and it lets itself get properly dark along the way - not gruesome imagery dark but emotional complexity dark - but it still wraps up about the way you'd expect it to. however creatively it gets there, 'tis a destination oft-visited. so, yeah: rollicking good time, and that's all it needs to be. banger.

A truly great point-and-click, mostly because of the writing and voice acting. So dramatic, colorful, powerful, pulpy.

I just loved listening to everything and read every description. The story is also captivating and weird. The whole death-loop thing were you die if you fail a puzzle and get to retry again with the knowledge you gathered from your failures - this is really up my alley.

I didn't love the more monstrously sci-fi direction the story takes towards the end, felt kind of out of left field and too much. But the story was still very thrilling, and again - pulpy.

Fantastic pixel-art and soundtrack too. I'm so glad it was this good after all the years I've been waiting for it.

I have only played the first chapter so far, but if you're looking for a point-and-click game with depth, good voice acting and great music, this seems to be worth looking into. The atmosphere is amazing, and I love how it challenges many stereotypes surrounding homelessness. It's also very dark, but has just a hint of humor/self-awareness of the tropes of the genre and it plays with them and surprises the player. Slight spoiler of something you get to know 5 minutes into the game The time loop is also new in that it is only a few seconds long - think fast or die again.

So far I would put this in a league with Unavowed.