Hoo boy! What Comes After is an emotional roller-coaster, it really is. I went through so many emotions in such a short time. So this is literally going to be a few short paragraphs so as not to ruin a single thing about the game.
What Comes After is over in less than 2 hours even if you take your time. It though manages to pack a punch or two in that short run -time. Amazingly so really, as one of the differences between movies and games is how they tell the story.
A game can allow a story to breathe and progress over many hours, whereas a film needs to get that same story told in a couple of hours. Which is why often videogame adaptations fail on the big screen. Anyway, I digress. Whilst there have been some wonderful short games in the past, barely any have packed as much emotion in such a short timeframe.
What Come After covers themes of suicide, anxiety and other mental health related issues and manages to get across the different feelings on may have with incredible nuance. The story is what sells this experience, with the gameplay purely as v3ehicle to get the story moving.
The way it explores life and death really needs to be experienced. It isn’t a game that will change your entire outlook on life, but it will make you have an appreciation of certain things and why some people take the actions they do, both positively and negatively.
But what else should I expect from the person behind the amazing Coffee Talk? Another game that was exceptional in the way it used the gaming aspect as a pure vehicle to tell some amazing stories. This is a lot shorter but equally as impactful.
I won’t say What Comes After is a must-have title, purely because it is a very personal experience and what you get from it will depend entirely on yourself. But I think this deserves as many eyes on it as possible and like other games that are willing to talk about mental health, the more exposure it gets, the more the discussion can grow.
