Edith Finch’s sprawling childhood home is rife with death. It invades every corner of the house, timid and cowering in mystery before it swells in its fantastical reveal. Death robs every sojourner who bears the last name Finch—it’s a curse.
Although they have died, the stories of the absconded Finches in What Remains of Edith Finch is what you, the player, are there to learn. As Edith, the last surviving Finch, you must explore the archive of loss where she grew up. The house is a wooden sentinel that quietly towers over the vast Washington forest it occupies. The inside is frozen in time; each room, behind its locked door, is perfectly preserved in the memory of the Finch who lived and died in it. Paintings and baubles are left inside for the deceased member, tenderly placed by their mourners. Alongside are letters, poems, or photo books that transport you to their final day as the player takes on the perspective of Edith’s late relatives and lives out their last moments.
The game is a visual novel—a walking simulation that prioritizes storytelling above complex or technical gameplay. While each person’s short story ends in death, they’re mightily full of life: strange and intricate and sometimes heartbreaking. Edith embraces these tales as her own, and the secrets scattered throughout the house float like dust dancing on a sunbeam, imprinting on her wondering eye, and by extension the player’s. The anecdotes that are left behind, though nothing but a glimmer of the family who lavished their love on Edith, become intertwined with her own story and its eventual end.
What Remains of Edith Finch portrays the intricacy and fragility of family history. Ultimately, the player is shown that the Finchs’ demise never came from a family curse, but from their own belief that they were cursed — a justification for the overwhelming grief each member felt after losing another. Edith bears the burden of being the last Finch alive: heralding the memories of her family and assuring that they aren’t gone with her departure. The Finch family’s legacy is one of tragedy. And yet, despite only inhabiting their tales for a few minutes, Edith’s forebearers hold a palpable, immeasurable weight in the game, and beg the player to consider death: its swiftness and asundering force, but also the stories we tell because of it. Maybe we are nothing but the stories of those that came before, and maybe we are nothing but how they are told now. Maybe, if we lived forever, we’d have time to understand how strange and brief life is.
