The End of the Sun

Today we’re going to be talking about The End of the Sun. Not the real sun, of course. There’s no reason to call Ryan Gossling. I’m talking about the new first-person adventure game, The End of the Sun, where a time-traveler uncovers generational secrets that may or may not involve a giant bird made out of fire. It’s time to rise from the ashes, because this is my review of The End of the Sun, out now on PlayStation 5.

This is the story of a sage sorcerer who uses his time travel abilities to piece together a mystery surrounding a small village in the middle of the woods. By jumping between four different time periods, all decades apart, we uncover secrets and lies that changed the lives of a young couple in ways you’ll have to see to believe. Using Slavic mythology as a jumping off point, we’re thrown into a fantasy world full of magic and mysticism, where everything seems to start and end with a massive bird made out of fire.

Confused? So was I for the first little bit. This game throws you into the story mid-way through, where you only see fragmented pieces and have to patch everything together. However, each mission uncovers a new piece of information, making the overall story make a lot more sense. It won’t take long before you genuinely care about the young lovers, their family and the tragedies that befall them.

The way they tackle each fragment of the story is actually pretty clever. A specific part of the story will be tied directly to one of a couple dozen bonfires. When you light it, you’ll be tied to it and need to complete a mission. You’ll see smoke guiding you to several different story beats, each with their own puzzle to solve. This will often be an item you need to find and return or maybe a brain-teaser you need to complete. Once you’ve resolved each bit of the mission, the cinema will play out and you’ll get a brand-new piece of the puzzle (along with a feather from that fire bird we talked about).

The trick is that you’ll need to be in the right season and time period to complete each of these different bonfire missions. You’ll often need to resolve something in the past in order for it to impact the future, opening up new parts of the map. A good example of this is an important bridge that connects the north and south side of the village. In the oldest time period, we’ll help a man build that bridge, allowing us to get to the other side in future time periods. This is just the most obvious instance, but there are examples of these types of time-traveling solutions happening throughout the game.

At first glance, this looks like the kind of first-person narrative games that people would disparagingly call a “walking simulator.” That label doesn’t fit here, because a lot of this game boils down to going on quests and solving puzzles. Sure, there are times where you’re just standing around and watching a couple of people deliver wooden dialog, but that usually comes after you’ve completed a task or interacted with this fantasy world in some way.

It helps that the story is genuinely gripping. Once I started piecing the timeline together, I was hooked by the mystery and wanted to see how everything played out. And while there are certainly some predictable (and corny) moments along the way, I thoroughly enjoyed the ride. There are enough moving parts to keep things lively and the reveals have real weight to them. The game is really good about taking time to allow an emotional moment to land, and I appreciated that the storytelling wasn’t in a rush.

It’s also surprisingly playful at times. For as dark as this game gets, there are some genuinely funny moments that really helped to lighten the mood. There’s a whole sequence where the time-traveling sorcerer ingests a bunch of psychedelic mushrooms to solve a puzzle, only to have to whole thing go wrong in some hilarious ways. I also appreciate that these comedic moments don’t get in the way or step on the more dramatic plot points. The storytelling is, for the most part, really good.

I’m also impressed with the forest village you’re exploring. This is a fantasy open world that looks and feels lived in, like generations of people have made it their home. It’s not an especially large open world, but it’s also not exactly tiny. It’s the kind of map that is large enough to feel like you’re actually traveling a distance between bonfires, but not so big that you’ll end up getting lost along the way.

The forest is lush and fun to explore. There are hidden secrets all over the place, and I found walking through the trees to be rather relaxing. I was also impressed with how the different seasons changed the look of the village. The snow storms were especially impressive. That said, there are times where you can tell that this was a lower-budgeted indie game, especially when exploring the autumn time period.

Sadly, the character graphics aren’t nearly at the same level as the open world. In fact, I would say that the characters in the game look terrible. It’s not just the jerky and unnatural animation, but it’s also the facial hair. It’s just so bad. The only person who looks good here is a half-naked spirit lady who lives in the water and is covered by seaweed. It helps that she doesn’t have a beard.

And I hate to say it, but the dialog coming out of their mouths is every bit as wooden as the animation. While I generally enjoyed the storytelling, the written conversations can be hit or miss. The two young lovers hit all of the cliches, and then some of the late-game speeches had me rolling my eyes. It makes a lot of extremely obvious points about aging and family and seeing things from other people’s point of view, and it’s all in the most ham-fisted way possible. Thankfully, the emotional story beats that land more than make up for the clunky writing.

What we’re left with is an entertaining first-person adventure game that gets a lot more right than wrong. The puzzles are put together well and don’t repeat, and the mystery will have you jumping through decades to uncover secrets and putting the pieces together. That is more than enough to recommend The End of the Sun to anybody who likes story-driven games or may just have a thing for Slavic folklore.