I don't think many people knew this was coming out anytime soon but it is out. Just thought i'd share that. I played it for about an hour and gotta say it has one of the best atmospheres I seen for an adventure game in a while. There is also no hand holding, so you gotta pay attention to what's happening which is a nice change.

This game looks really cool, definitely looking forward to playing it eventually.

Stealth release. Looking forward to playing it on PS4, it's certainly intriguing.

Sweet. Looks like a cool game. Are there any reviews out?

Wow, I just sat down with it for a couple hours and I am honestly almost lost for words. Yes, it runs silky smooth on my modest PC, yes it's one of the best-looking games in history.

Technical achievements aside, so far it seems rich in almost every respect. What happened within the first half hour, when I stumbled on some optional doodad tucked away out in the world was so significant, so unique and well-executed in itself, that at the time I was sort of bummed out that a lot of people wouldn't see it. Yet, moments equally significant seem to punctuate the absurdly beautiful environment, you just have to find them and figure them out. Those moments are the core game, and they can charm you with a clever puzzle or switch it up and scare the shit out of you. The journey along that spectrum is surreal, and the diverse and varied environments go a long way to keep things fresh. To say much more would be a disservice, because the surprise was part of what I enjoyed.

I remember Matt from Two Best Friends Play referenced Murdered: Soul Suspect when the trailer for this showed at E3. Seemed like a fair comparison on that conceptual level. In retrospect it's pretty hilarious how poor a comparison that is...

Goddamn, you just sold me this game.

This game looks gorgeous. Here it is in 2560x1440 with everything turned up to max, running this on an i7-4790k and a 780 Ti with 16gb of DDR3.

@mb: I don't think it looks that great but whatever. Just looks like a modded Skyrim.

I think Modded Skyrim does look great...but like you said..."Whatever"

ADD IT TO THE LIST, JIM!

@meauntienora: I felt the same way when I ran into that thing out in the woods...that was strange, and really blew away whatever preconceptions I had about the game up until that point. This game is weird...it's reminding me of Myst right now for some reason, although I'm still early on.

I was thinking about starting a separate topic to discuss the actual game but it would be so rife with spoilers I'm not sure it would even be worth doing, this seems like something one needs to experience and figure out on their own in order to get the most out of it .

Oh, I thought this was a full retail release. Only $20? I'm definitely in for this. Steam reviews are very positive so far.

Super interested in this game. For those that played it, how is the horror level? I don't mind psychological horror, as someone who has stress issues, jump scares really kill me and I won't be able to enjoy the game if there's too much of those.

Thanks ! (Probably still gonna buy it anyway).

@fear_the_booboo:

I found one so far and it caught me off guard.

@fear_the_booboo: So far this isn't a jump scare game like Outlast or something like that. It seems to be more in the vein of supernatural or psychological horror with some possibly disturbing elements, but it's not jump out of your seat scary. At least at the point I'm at, I'm sort of stuck on an early puzzle.

It is a full retail release, it's just not a $59.99 one :D

@mb: Sounds good. I just hate the Dead Space brand of horror, but this seems to be more smart how it uses its scare.

@mb: Sorry, I'm in the bad habit of using "full release" as a synonym for "$60." You're right.

So, this game is pretty good, but the lack of direction is jamming me up a bit. Earlier I wandered around for half an hour trying to figure out how to get into a certain area. Turns out I had to do some completely unrelated thing, then the indicator for the area I was supposed to go into magically lit up and I was able to proceed. Very annoying, but once I got past that part I was onto the next story & puzzle section.

The game seems quite well done so far, and is something like The 7th Guest plus Myst with a little bit of Outlast or Amnesia thrown in. It has some unique storytelling devices and game mechanics, if you like mysteries and don't mind if a game doesn't hold your hand the entire way, it may be worth a look. Especially with $20 being the full retail price.

Been playing this for a bit (just past the first scene puzzle), and the graphics really are a sight to see. I don't think I've seen outdoor environments looking this photo-realistic before. The game is intriguing so far but as long as it continues to look this good I'm almost happy to just wander around and look at stuff. (Playing on PC at 1080p max settings with a 770, seems to maintain a solid 60fps lock too.)

Edit: whoa, yeah it's worth exploring that's all I will say. Definitely would advise trying to avoid any spoilers if you can!

The best part so far of my first play through was turning around right at the start of the game, heading back into the tunnel. I thought there'd be an invisible wall to prevent coming out the other end, but I was able to come out the other side and start the game/experience unlike many people probably do. It felt great.

This is a gorgeous game with a solid engine. It runs maxed out and silky smooth at 60fps on my measly GTX470.

So is this episodic.. or is it one of those 2hr long games? It looks really interesting but if it's episodic I rather get all of it when it's out.

It's not episodic. I've been reading that it usually lasts between 3-5 hours, depending on how thorough you are. There seems to be a lot of stuff that's missable.

I am guessing just the PC game is out can't find it on the ps 4 store

PS4 version will come out sometime next year.

Anyone else getting some pretty major stuttering? The AA seems to make a pretty big difference to my system - 16xCSAA, 8xMSAA give me 60fps. 4xMSAA gives me 80+ while 2xMSAA sees a solid 120 but on all settings when I'm moving I get stutters (down to 30 or 40 fps) every 30 seconds or so.

4670K, 780GTX, 8GB DDR3

I haven't had any stuttering issues in this, but when I do in other games, forcing a frame rate limit in NVidia Inspector usually fixes it. No guarantees, but it's at least worth a shot.

@pimblycharles: Yep, tried locking it to 60 yesterday but it's not made any difference. There's a thread on the Steam forum with people having the same issues and those with pretty old hardware saying it runs fine.

Good old Unreal texture pop in on a massive scale I think.

@dave_tacitus: I'm running this on a GTX 780 Ti overclocked about 15%, a 4790k at 4.6ghz, and 16gb RAM. 1440p/60fps, no stuttering, I'm using 4x MSAA. Game running off an SSD, not sure how important that is for Unreal games, though.

@mb: I was thinking about sticking it on the SSD to see how it performs. It's on a Caviar Black right now.

I shall report back...

EDIT - It's a little better on the SSD but still noticeable. Strange.

The game's perfectly playable but it kinda kills the immersion. Last time I had stuttering like this was when my modded Skyrim had save bloat, and that was *my* fault.

Ugh this game is fantastic but also driving me crazy because I'm so anxious about missing something, which apparently I already did by not turning around at the very beginning?

And yeah, it doesn't look like anything special in screenshots but it looks amazing when you're playing.

@dave_tacitus: Have you tried disabling in-game AA and using the Nvidia Control Panel instead?

Yeah, I saw it available on Steam a couple of days ago, and from the footage I've watched, it looked like something I might be interested in. Though I thought this would be a full priced game - maybe a 40 - Does anyone who finished it can tell me more or less how long it is? You can put a tag on it, 'cause I feel this might be spoiler-ish for some people...

I've gotten at least 4 hours out of it so far, but haven't finished. Don't think I'm too near the end. I've been stopping and exploring for every puzzle on the way. It's been a fantastic ride so far, but goes at a slow pace. Direction of where to go and what to do is difficult in this. There's story sections, from solving a murder puzzle, that are so well crafted that can be skipped and walked right past. I'd imagine some could finish it in like 3-4 hours, but I'm guessing my play through should be around 6-8 hrs. Hope that helps.

@batmanbatman: Well, I just finished it today and I gotta say it is pretty good. According to Steam it took me 3 hours and I got stuck several times. I think for a 20 dollar story driven game it is pretty amazing, and the ending was great.

@kaos_cracker: @pimblycharles: Thanks guys! I might pick this one up, sooner than later...

@mb: Yup. I've been round the houses with this one. I'm pretty sure it's texture loading causing the stutters because I get them no matter what the detail level - I can see them popping in like Mass Effect 1 on console did. The game's not using a lot of VRAM (it's using 800mb) or taxing my CPU but my GPU is constantly at 80-90%. I've rolled back my drivers to the last iteration too.

One of the dev's solutions seems to be doing a clean re-install of the game. That's next on my list.

EDIT - I see a big thread on Steam now about the issue and a lot of the guys seeing problems have pretty decent systems (and a lot of 780s). There are a few tweaking suggestions there I'll try.

EDIT 2 - Forcing max pre-rendered frames to 4 smooths it out a bit but doesn't cure it. Seems weird that the vast majority of people having problems in that Steam thread are 780 (GTX and Ti) users.

I wish it came out on Xbox One :/.

Damn, that's too bad...I wonder what is up, because I ran this game on a 780 Ti coupled with a 4790k and didn't see any stuttering while using 4x MSAA. Honestly though, I turned off the MSAA completely after reading your reply and didn't see a huge difference...then I forced various levels of AA through the Nvidia control panel and they all ran fine, too.

I wonder if it's possible the stuttering is only with specific versions of certain cards, or in BIOS revisions? It could really be anything, it's just strange that I don't have the same issues. Maybe due to my relatively high overclock? Hm. Thanks for at least updating the topic with your findings though, maybe it will help others in the future who are going through the same thing.

@mb: Ah well, it's just one of those quirks of PC gaming I guess. A rig that can run Tomb Raider or Sleeping Dogs on Ultra at 100fps+ without stuttering is floored by something that guys with 460s claim is running sweetly. There's a very small team behind that game, with only one guy doing programming, I think, so I'm inclined to give them a pass.

Thanks for trying to help anyway, I'll post again if they've patched the game or a fix has been found. It's Unreal 3 so there are loads of ini tweaks I could try but I'll be sinking my gaming time into Wasteland 2 for the next while so Ethan Carter will have to sit on the back burner.

So I just finished this in 5.5 hrs, and am just astonished at the conclusion. It had me really baffled for about an hour, but I think I get it. No spoilers obviously. That was one hell of an experience! I wasn't keen on where the story was going in the early parts, but near the conclusion, things start to make sense and it's all just so surreal and awesome.

Anyone that likes to be put through an immersive experience, with some Lynch style twists, and feel like you're in wilderness should give this one a shot. It's the best hiking simulator ever. Absolutely stunning graphics and the world has so much detail everywhere. The developers took pride in their work; it shows. It has a great, mind bending, but sensible story. It's basically an adventure/puzzle game. The puzzles are all pretty easy, but feel involved. You do a puzzle, then you move on. Traveling is fun in this though, especially if you're a fan of being out in nature.

There are some really tense moments and scares in this as well. There were a few moments where I freaked out. It was great.

The Vanishing is an eccentric, walkathon, puzzle adventure that gets 5/5 stars from me. That said, I will likely never play it again. It was worth every penny for the $20 cost though.

Here's some screens I took:

Gallery

After my first post in this topic I was closer to beating it than I realized... Yeah not a long game, but well-worth the time to play it, especially at that price point.

Also, with the intro disclaimer and forum threads, there's a really common refrain about this game not giving the player any guidance, and the exploration being xtreme and freeform. I imagine some people are put off by that idea. I think some fans reactively spin it into something that can seem condescending or exclusionary, and that probably intimidates some people. But I was surprised to find that there absolutely IS formal player guidance in this game. No, it doesn't give you a quest marker, or even a quest journal. But at times the writing basically says "you should go here now." Shifts in musical cues can give you clues about your environment, valleys and railways and rivers are plausibly placed and aesthetically pleasing, but also serve to channel the player effectively to places of interest. And places of interest are often within eyeshot of each other.

Regarding the "optional" stuff I alluded to in my first impression: by the end, the game makes sure you've seen it all, in a pretty cool way.

I've found a decent fix for the texture loading problems. It's still there but far less noticeable.

Go to Documents\my games\The Vanishing of Ethan Carter\AstronautsGame\Config (or wherever your game saves live) and look for AstronautsEngine.ini.

Change bInitializeShadersOnDemand from False to True.

Change UseMinimalNVIDIADriverShaderOptimization from True to False.

I played through the whole game yesterday. It's gorgeous and pretty atmospheric with a handful of very cool sequences, but the solution to the mystery is cheap and disappointing. And there's nothing else to the game: the puzzles, which are few, are either based entirely around memorization or so small that they barely qualify as puzzles, and aside from that you just walk around and look at stuff.

@icemael: I agree. I think people should play the game to experience the visuals because they are something else, but I was pretty disappointed by the ending in the game. After the puzzle that launched you into space, I was excited to see where they were going to take the story, but at the end it felt like they were going for a big twist that fell flat.

Kinda feel mixed about the vanishing of ethan carter. On one hand the graphics are very pretty but on the other hand the puzzles in the game are very basic. In a way I would have wished to have a bit more puzzle solving in Ethan Carter.

The main gameplay consists of just basically walking around the world and hoping to bump into the elements that move the story forward. Usually these elements consist of either reading a text of some kind or watching a vision from the past.

Gorgeous game that ran at a stable 60fps on my older machine (2x Radeon HD6950 2GB, i5 2500K) with everything maxed, save for AA, which was a pleasant surprise. The story was okay, nothing special, but the voice acting was kind of distracting. The sound and art design complemented by technical side of things certainly makes up for that though.

Alright so I just finished it last night, wrapped in a blanket and sipping tea while it was raining outside.

I hike in the woods a lot in near a small country town in northern Quebec and this games NAILS that atmosphere. I loved it. If I'm going to compare it it Dear Esther and Gone Home, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter sucked me in a lot more.

That part in the mines with the jump scares thought... fuck that shit.