Much like the recent trend of battle royal games, the walking simulator is a newer genre that is here to stay. Whether you love them or hate them, these games offer a unique way of telling a story, but rarely have much gameplay value in the traditional sense. The new title Shape of the World takes on the more difficult task of asking the audience to play with no real story to be told. So what is the point of the game? Well, I’m not really sure and I’ve managed to complete it, although it seems to be for relaxation.

I feel like the game alludes to you being God in some way or another, turning a blank canvas into a living breathing world. You will collect seeds, which you can in turn throw to make fully fledged trees appear in the blink of an eye. With the right trigger you can also destroy, or interact in some cases, with the same foliage. Interacting with large stones causes strange stairwells to appear, often leading to another area or the current objective which is a triangle that will appear as you get closer, often being visible through other in game assets.

The controls are extremely accessible due to the basic nature of the game. While you can jump using a face button, it is rarely needed. The bulk of your time will simply be using the sticks to move and look around, with the triggers working to create or destroy/use as I mentioned previously. The controls work well, but movement speed is often sluggish which makes you feel as if you’re in waist deep mud.

There are no true enemies to encounter, nor is death a thing in the game. You will occasionally encounter a living being, which all start out small as if they are larger versions of a single cell organism, and eventually become large whales swimming through the sky. That said, the game plays out much like what I would assume would be your best (or worst) acid trip. You can interact with most of the creatures, but few will actually do much of anything other than occasionally push you off of a ledge or allow you to use them as a trampoline of sorts to jump higher into the air. I’m not sure if this was how it was intended, but shooting seeds at them to create trees would often stop them from pushing me away from my goal.

Similar to the typical walking sim which relies on the story to drive the player forward, this uses a combination of calming ambient music with its stylized, yet detailed visual style. The game uses a unique visual trick that I haven’t seen used much in any medium since my freshman year of art school. I will spare you the technical term, but when you use multiple colors of the same intensity with different hues, it causes the brain to see the illusion of depth within a 2D space. While this makes for some stunning visuals, it does leave some like me with a grueling headache. This lingered with me for hours after completing the game.

Despite the fact that it felt like someone was taking a power drill to my head, I managed to complete the game in less than two hours. While there are collectibles, as well as additional areas tucked away to be found that encourages players to revisit the world, this will likely not be enough for most gamers.

I consider myself to be an individual with higher than average intelligence and am still puzzled by the ending. I’m not sure if there is a deep seeded story that I am not getting, or you are simply on a journey taking in the sights and sounds working your way from point A to point B over and over again. Either way, I would recommend picking up the title once the price drops a little, as the $14.99 price point feels a bit high due to the lack of content offered.

7 out of 10

Pros

• Accessible Controls
• Relaxing Atmosphere
• Unique Presentation…

Cons

• …That Can Cause Headaches
• A Bit Short on Content

Shape of the World was developed by Hollow Tree Games and published by Plug In Digital. It launched on June 5th, 2018 for PC and PS4 as well as on June 6th, 2018 for X1 and NS. The game was provided to us for review on PS4. If you’d like to see more of Shape of the World , check out the official site.

 

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