#Gone home ending movie#

The game has all of the trappings of a horror game - the creepy mansion, the stormy night, the flickering lights. It drove me (and I assume most people) to search every bit of the mansion to find out See, I read that as subverting expectations. While I never thought ghosts or supernatural stuff was at play, the general setting definitely added a level of suspense to needing to know exactly how everything worked out for the different family members. Without any tension (where is everyone? Why is the place kinda overly messy? Did they end up together?) the story loses its drive. If anything the fact that some people feel misled by it is a testament to how good a job it did in immersing players in the situation.Īlso to those saying it diminishes the story of Sam and Lonnie. All of the actual atmosphere and tension is drawn from immersing the player enough that it draws from the same feeling we would get if we were alone in a big old mansion at night. that is prime fodder for local legends and that is exactly how the game treats it.

People thought it was haunted because it was alone, old, big, and a old recluse lived their by himself for decades. It never really presented the crazy person/ghost elements in any way other than slightly goofy as it would have been in real life. Most of the references to that stuff seemed like knowing nods, maybe not so much to actually mislead you but on a basic level of how being alone in a big dark house in a storm is inherently creepy. I see where you are all coming from with the subverting of expectations, but very early on in the game (especially since it gives explanations for all the SPOOKY like the lights, and how it treats the ghost stuff like teens would treat ghost stuff) I figured it was not going to be a horror story or game at all. And that's the manipulation that irks me. But what we thought was at stake - Sam's life - never actually was. Is it as bad as 'it was all a dream'? Not by a long shot. Yet the game does everything in its power to mislead you into thinking that it is. But at no point was her life in danger, not in any way shape or form. What is actually at stake? The happiness of our sister. Now then, what does Gone Home lead us to believe is at stake? Nothing less than the very lives and safety of our family. When a story ends with 'it was all a dream', why do we get upset? Because it means everything we just saw doesn't matter, and whatever we thought was at stake never actually was. In the end, it's about the stakes of the story. To claim anything different is totally disingenuous. When we see the dye in the tub, we jump to the conclusion that someone has died because the game has deliberately led us to that conclusion. They're deliberately trying to mislead you into thinking something terrible has happened to members of your family. If the haunted house setting doesn't do it, the answering machine messages certainly do. Oh come on, the game certainly doesn't ask you to come to it without preconceptions, it deliberately creates those expectations from minute one. It asked us to approach the game without preconceptions, and I'll admit I couldn't do that and was wrong multiple times. The game played on the expectations we had for an empty mansion, but no I wouldn't say it manipulated us. The tub having dye isn't manipulative either, the only reason we have to suspect that someone died is our own grandiose expectations for a game narrative, and the bottle if right next to that tub. They never lied to us, Sam's notes give us more than ample reason to not suspect the supernatural.

#Gone home ending movie#

I think we drew conclusions with incomplete information based on typical game and movie tropes.

At the end of the story, I'm happy for Lonnie and Sam, but I feel empty when it comes to the experience as a whole. I really liked most of what this game offered, but I do feel like a 'bait & switch' happened. I just don't know why they felt the need to add artificial drama when there's more than enough drama in Sam & Lonnie's story as it is. The tub first appears to be caked in blood, but on further examination, it's hair dye and part of one of the happiest parts of her narrative.Īnd it's a perfect example of how manipulative the game is, which is exactly what I was saying. I thinks that Sam's bathroom, for instance, is a perfect example of this. It's playing with what we think a video game will be about, in order to draw you into an incredibly un-gamey story. See, I read that as subverting expectations.