- Epic's free game today is one of the best detective games on PC - 19 December 2021
The Epic Games Store holiday celebration is in full swing and users are once again getting treated to a daily free game , and today's title is The Vanishing of Ethan Carter - one of the best "walking sim" exploration games around, which is also making its debut on Epic's store. Yesterday Epic users were treated to a copy of one of the best Soulslikes of the last few years, Remnant: From The Ashes , so hopefully everyone who wanted that picked that up because the 24 hours are up and a new game is available now - and it's still one of the best detective/exploration games on PC , not to mention a gorgeous one. Head here to grab it , just make sure to do so within the next 24 hours. The Vanishing of Ethan Carter was released all the way back in 2014 on Steam before the Epic Games Store was even a thing. Our reviewer enjoyed it but said that it wasn't without issues, so it's lucky that devel…
- Video games and the change of autumn - 5 October 2018
Editor's note: Rob's piece here concludes his series of essays for Eurogamer on the seasons in video games. For more, be sure to check out Video games and the life of summer , starring Witcher 3, Firewatch and Dishonored 2, The power of spring in Horizon Zero Dawn, Everybody's Gone to the Rapture and The Last of Us , and Video games and the power of winter , which looks at Skyrim. Rain and wind, shorter days, and imminent dormancy; autumn often has a bad reputation. However, there is excitement, intrigue and pleasure to be found in this season of change. Landscapes become sparser with each leaf that drops in the wind. The temperature oscillates between a gentle warmth and a sharp chill. Golden foliage changes the colour of the land and alters the feel of the landscape. Some games have wondrous, gorgeous autumn landscape that present supreme autumnal palettes, narrative-mirroring landsca…
- The Vanishing of Ethan Carter may be getting a 'free roam' mode on PC - 5 January 2018
The first-person supernatural mystery The Vanishing of Ethan Carter is good stuff. We called it a "intriguing, mostly satisfying, and most importantly, wonderfully restrained" story in our 82/100 review , and the biggest complaint—lack of a manual save option—was addressed in a " Redux " update that dropped in 2015. And now it looks like another update adding a peaceful, puzzle-free "free roam" mode, could be on the way too.  The mode is on the way, in the Xbox One version of the game that's coming out later this month. "Many people agree this is one of the most beautiful games on the market, and some expressed a desire to explore the environment without any darkness in it, and by darkness we mean bloodies corpses and locked doors. They wanted to just have a nice relaxing walk down the Red Creek Valley," The Astronauts co-founder Adrian Chmielarz explained . "Tha…
- Our most intense ragequit moments - 15 January 2016
Games confront us with failure all the time. It could be the famous YOU DIED message of Dark Souls, or the unfavourable scorecard at the end of a hard-fought round of Rocket League. In the heat of the moment calm Vulcan exteriors can crack. Curses are uttered. Innocent controllers are thrown out of windows. Things can get intense. Some games induce rage more than others. A long game of Dota 2 squandered by one error will understandably leave some participants furious, but when we started writing about the games that made us quit in anger some surprises turned up. Even a serene adventure like The Vanishing of Ethan Carter or a strategy game like Civ can trigger a moment of total despair. Here is a collection of our ragequit stories. Share your own in the comments. Rocket League and The Vanishing of Ethan Carter Samuel Roberts About ten years ago I used to break games, controllers and key…
- The Vanishing of Ethan Carter studio is working on an 'action-adventure' game - 29 November 2015
The Vanishing of Ethan Carter was certainly an adventure, but it didn't have much action. Chris Livingston described it as " a tense and spooky stroll through a gorgeous world ", and stroll is the operative word here: it was a slow-paced, investigative experience. The studio responsible for it, Poland-based The Astronauts, looks set to expand its horizons though, according to a job description on its website. The description is in Polish, but a rough Google translate suggests the studio's follow-up will be "an open world action-adventure". The Astronauts is recruiting for an AI and general programmer who can work with Unreal Engine 4. While the new title will presumably have more "action" the translation suggests it will have a similar mood and focus on narrative. That's good news, because those elements were the best parts of The Vanishing of Ethan Carter. It was also a very beautiful…
- The Vanishing of Ethan Carter Redux Update 1.01 - 15 September 2015
– Scale resolution 150% added, great cost/effect ratio – Proper mouse behavior in menus (no extra click needed) – Fixed re-assigning keys to arrow keys – Perma-config, no longer requires the load of a savegame – Water Reflections can now be turned off – Smart Crosshair turns off in the outro – Fixed the fog flash after Start New Game – Proper display of graphics options on a fresh install – Language now remembered 100% of the time – Smaller visual and code/script fixes – Disabled the VR support. Details: http://www.theastronauts.com/2015/09/the-vanishing-of-ethan-carter-redux-out-now/
- The Vanishing of Ethan Carter Redux Update 1.01 - 15 September 2015
– Scale resolution 150% added, great cost/effect ratio – Proper mouse behavior in menus (no extra click needed) – Fixed re-assigning keys to arrow keys – Perma-config, no longer requires the load of a savegame – Water Reflections can now be turned off – Smart Crosshair turns off in the outro – Fixed the fog flash after Start New Game – Proper display of graphics options on a fresh install – Language now remembered 100% of the time – Smaller visual and code/script fixes – Disabled the VR support. Details: http://www.theastronauts.com/2015/09/the-vanishing-of-ethan-carter-redux-out-now/
- The Vanishing of Ethan Carter Redux Out Now! - 12 September 2015
The Vanishing of Ethan Carter Redux is an Unreal Engine 4 remaster of the original PC game. It is a free game for the current and future owners of the original. You should already have the game in your Library. It's a separate game from the original (i.e. not a patch) because this way you can choose which one takes your HDD space. You can hide the other one by right click, then Set Categories, then Hide This Game From Library. Details here in this blog post. (You might like the part about the secret exe file) Also, Ethan is now 40% off for 24 more hours! Let your friends know!
- The Vanishing of Ethan Carter Redux Out Now! - 12 September 2015
The Vanishing of Ethan Carter Redux is an Unreal Engine 4 remaster of the original PC game. It is a free game for the current and future owners of the original. You should already have the game in your Library. It's a separate game from the original (i.e. not a patch) because this way you can choose which one takes your HDD space. You can hide the other one by right click, then Set Categories, then Hide This Game From Library. Details here in this blog post. (You might like the part about the secret exe file) Also, Ethan is now 40% off for 24 more hours! Let your friends know!
- The Vanishing of Ethan Carter Redux appears on Steam - 11 September 2015
As a thoughtful supernatural adventure created by the founders of the studio that gave the gaming world " dicktits ," The Vanishing of Ethan Carter was something of a surprise. And now, a year after its launch, it's time for another surprise: It's been completely rebuilt in Unreal Engine 4 and re-released as The Vanishing of Ethan Carter Redux. The updated version came, as far as I can tell, entirely without fanfare. The Ethan Carter Steam page simply notes that anyone who buys the game will get both the original and the Redux versions, and provides a link to The Astronauts blog , which explains the situation in greater detail. The two games are identical in terms of story, and the "Redux" moniker isn't even entirely official, but a number of improvements have been made. The save system has been modified to save the world state at any point, rather than only areas that have been fully s…
- Daily Deal - The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, 40% Off - 11 September 2015
Today's Deal: Save 40% on The Vanishing of Ethan Carter !* Look for the deals each day on the front page of Steam. Or follow us on twitter or Facebook for instant notifications wherever you are! *Offer ends Sunday at 10AM Pacific Time
- Midweek Madness - The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, 60% Off - 31 March 2015
Save 60% on The Vanishing of Ethan Carter during this week's Midweek Madness*! The Vanishing of Ethan Carter is a first-person story-driven mystery game focused on exploration and discovery. As occult-minded private detective Paul Prospero communicate with the dead to discover the fate of a missing boy and the mystery behind a dark ancient force lurking in Red Creek Valley. *Offer ends Friday at 10AM Pacific time
- Update #5 is now live! - 23 December 2014
This small update adds the following option to the launcher and the game: Framerate Control. "Unlimited framerate" is the default behavior, "Smoothed 60 fps max" is something that might potentially help in rare cases with micro-stuttering. Note: please check if your graphic options have changed after this update and if so (unlikely, but still), restore them to your favorite set up. We have also removed FXAA as it never worked well with the game (and when it did, it looked ugly with the amount of alpha-intensive vegetation and the postprocess filters we use). We have also removed ambient occlusion option, as we use AO extremely rarely (only on a couple of objects), and it was so subtle that people thought it didn't work at all anyway.
- Update #5 is now live! - 23 December 2014
This small update adds the following option to the launcher and the game: Framerate Control. "Unlimited framerate" is the default behavior, "Smoothed 60 fps max" is something that might potentially help in rare cases with micro-stuttering. Note: please check if your graphic options have changed after this update and if so (unlikely, but still), restore them to your favorite set up. We have also removed FXAA as it never worked well with the game (and when it did, it looked ugly with the amount of alpha-intensive vegetation and the postprocess filters we use). We have also removed ambient occlusion option, as we use AO extremely rarely (only on a couple of objects), and it was so subtle that people thought it didn't work at all anyway.
- Update #4 - Achievements - is now live! - 21 November 2014
- added 14 Achievements to the game. If you have finished the game already, most of them will automatically unlock simply when you launch the game. See this blog post for details: http://theastrocrew.tumblr.com/post/103220889213/achievements-in-the-vanishing-of-ethan-carter - sent a diver to remove the sniper rifle from the center of the lake and then hide it so no one would ever find it.
- Update #4 - Achievements - is now live! - 21 November 2014
- added 14 Achievements to the game. If you have finished the game already, most of them will automatically unlock simply when you launch the game. See this blog post for details: http://theastrocrew.tumblr.com/post/103220889213/achievements-in-the-vanishing-of-ethan-carter - sent a diver to remove the sniper rifle from the center of the lake and then hide it so no one would ever find it.
- Tags and album art added to OST (Collector's Upgrade) - 9 October 2014
Are you using Steam Music Player? This way or another, we have updated the OST in Collector's Upgrade/Preorder Extras with proper tags and the album cover. Much nicer this way!
- Tags and album art added to OST (Collector's Upgrade) - 9 October 2014
Are you using Steam Music Player? This way or another, we have updated the OST in Collector's Upgrade/Preorder Extras with proper tags and the album cover. Much nicer this way!
- Collector's Edition Upgrade is out now! - 3 October 2014
Collector's Edition Upgrade is out now, including the entire OST (over two hours of music), "Making of" PDF album, the digital map of Red Creek Valley, high-res digital poster, and exclusive wallpapers. http://store.steampowered.com/app/319930/
- Collector's Edition Upgrade is out now! - 3 October 2014
Collector's Edition Upgrade is out now, including the entire OST (over two hours of music), "Making of" PDF album, the digital map of Red Creek Valley, high-res digital poster, and exclusive wallpapers. http://store.steampowered.com/app/319930/
