


Though it was released back in 2015, Everybody’s Gone To The Rapture is still a frequent citation for those pointing to examples of how the interactive medium can explore complex themes, such as grief, in interesting new ways. READ MORE: ‘Dear Esther’ at 10, and the rise and fall of the walking simulator.

Curry’s music was very much a living, breathing characteristic of the game, following the lone player on the wind, framing ghostly re-enactments of past events and wringing out the shifting moods of its pastoral landscape. Rapture relinquished conventional gameplay mechanics and – as with its spiritual predecessor Dear Esther – emphasised aching isolation over action, underscoring a world weighted by the omnipresent cloud of absence. Via a blend of its bucolic Shropshire-based setting and the loneliness of its desolate houses, fields and streets, all soundtracked by birdsong, and Jessica Curry’s emotion-stirring, BAFTA-winning score, The Chinese Room’s Everybody’s Gone To The Rapture presented one of gaming’s most strikingly effective depictions of loss.
