A reminder to keep living, even when the world is ending - SEASON: A Letter to the Future Review
In many ways, SEASON: A Letter to the Future plays like an essential game for this particular moment in our society. We’re living through a time of pandemics, massive economic inequality, political strife, and the looming cascade of disasters brought on by climate change. Video games have only existed as a medium for less than the blink of an eye in the grand scheme of human history, and yet it’s rare for a game to feel as strongly tied to now as SEASON.
In SEASON, I took on the role of Estelle, a young woman who has spent her life safely within the protective walls of Caro Village. At the game’s outset, she sets off on a life-changing journey. A villager has received a premonition that a great change is coming, which means the “season” will end and likely many people will die. Estelle must venture out into a world she’s never known, not to save the world from this impending disaster—this isn’t that kind of game—but rather to chronicle the people and places of this season before the next one comes and wipes everything away.
As a game explicitly set between end-of-the-world scenarios, SEASON balances between a traditional post-apocalyptic experience and a pre-apocalyptic vision of the future. Where other post-apocalyptic games might have players fighting off mutants with pipes, Estelle’s main method of interacting with her dead and dying world is through taking pictures, recording audio, and picking up postcards, flyers, and other remnants of civilization that she finds lying around.
See, Estelle’s goal is to create a record. She is keeping a journal that she will deliver to the Museum Vault, one of the sole places that it is believed will withstand whatever disaster is about to ravage the world. She is writing, well, a letter to the future, a means for whatever humans remain in the next season to learn about and remember those who came before.
Estelle’s path through the valleys and hills of this world is mostly linear, with some moments where I was invited to explore a wider area with a few branching paths. That said, SEASON provides players with a meaningful touch of player choice via the aforementioned journal. Each unique location Estelle visits is represented as a two-page spread in the journal, and I got to pick which pictures, recordings, stamps, and observations from Estelle would fill that page. While these decisions may not impact how the story plays out, every player is bound to have a unique journal by the end, with their own personality displayed through what they’ve decided is important to share with the future.
SEASON isn’t without flaws. Estelle is voice-acted perfectly, but some of the minor characters deliver their lines awkwardly. And the game is liable to leave you wanting more. You can rush through in five or six hours if you don’t take your time, although I spent quite a bit longer just exploring things at my own pace. To be honest, though, these issues felt extremely minor compared to what the game accomplished.
The best word I can think of to describe SEASON overall would be “relaxing.” The game features some light elements of mystery and intrigue when it comes to learning about the history of this world and trying to piece together the motives of the handful of other characters Estelle meets on her journey. But for the most part, it’s all about just biking through a gorgeous (if sometimes gloomy) countryside, stopping at points to snap a few photos or record the noises of local wildlife.
It’s about documenting graffiti hidden on the back of a statue and trying to discern what the artist’s intentions were. It’s about hiding out from the rain under an overpass and discovering the remains of a shelter. It’s about taking a pit stop at a cow farm, petting each of the ten cows individually, and recording the names emblazoned on their collars for posterity.
Estelle doesn’t have the power to stop the season from changing in the same way that each of us, as individuals, cannot fix the overwhelming number of problems plaguing our world right now. Despite that realistic, clearheaded point of view, though, SEASON: A Letter to the Future is not cynical or fatalistic. It remembers the past, lives in the present, and imagines the future simultaneously. It reminds us that we must document our lives. Even if that act of documentation cannot save us, it just might serve to save future generations—or at least to let them know that we were once here, and that this is how we made our lives, hopeful and exhausted and pushing forward even in the face of the end-times.
SCORE: 5 STARS OUT OF 5
PLAY IF YOU LIKE:
• Journaling. If you’ve ever spent time sketching in notebooks or keeping a diary tracking the sights and sounds of your day, you’ll appreciate SEASON’s focus on building out a journal.
• Cozy games. If you’re looking for a title with high drama or a driving purpose pushing you forward, look elsewhere. SEASON is all about the vibes, and you need to take it at your own pace.
• Contemplating the potential extinction of your species to the point that it stops being terrifying and wraps back around into providing a sort of serenity. We should do what we can to make the world a better place, but maybe hyperfixating on how fucked we are isn’t actually that useful. Let’s all take a deep breath and keep living in this moment. And this moment. And this moment.
💬 Who’s got their journals out and ready to cover in stickers and photos? Let me know in the comments if you’ll be playing SEASON: A Letter to the Future or skipping it!
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