The Suicide of Rachel Foster is an eerie-looking first-person narrative adventure game set in a "desolate mountain hotel" in the early 1990s. Trapped by a blizzard, and with no connection to the outside world beyond the disembodied voice of a distant FEMA agent, players will explore the hotel in an effort to piece together "a dark family mystery."
If that setup, and the trailer, strike you as a little familiar, the odds are good that you've played Gone Home, What Remains of Edith Finch, and/or Firewatch at some point over the past few years. The similarities are not subtle—but, on the other hand, if you're going to take inspiration from other games, you could do a lot worse than those three.
Publisher Daedalic Entertainment describes The Suicide of Rachel Foster as "a thriller about love and deception," with bits of mystery and horror here and there, all built on "intriguing, touching, and mature storytelling." Daedalic is generally pretty solid on that front, Goodbye Deponia notwithstanding, but the game is actually being developed by One-o-One Games, an Italian studio whose one previous release—a Mad Max-knockoff twin-stick shooter for mobiles—doesn't offer much insight into the depth of its narrative capabilities.
Still, I like the looks of the trailer, and I do enjoy a good mystery, so I really hope this turns out to be one. The Suicide of Rachel Foster is available for pre-purchase on Steam, and will go live on February 19.
