The Missing is...a hard game to talk about. I think it really needs to be experienced to be understood. It's also a hard game to recommend, given both the content warnings required (extreme violence and body horror) and some of the subject matters tackled (self-harm, dysphoria, suicide). However, it touched me in a way very few games have managed to, and i couldn't be more thankful to have played it.
The gameplay is basically if Limbo or Inside decided to make death a mechanic. You struggle forward using the harm the environment brings to yourself, by using your limbs to solve different puzzles. In and of itself, it's just a dark twist on a pretty-overdone genre, but this gimmick in turn perfectly resonates with the core themes of the game and the story itself.
I'm sorry i'm keeping it vague, i genuinely want to say the least bit possible aside from what could genuinely hurt some people, so please heed the warnings of the first paragraph, and if it seems like it won't bother you TOO much, go ahead and play it.
The Missing is an absolutely breathtaking experience and one of the best uses of ludo-narrative in a game i've seen in a long time. You suffer along with the main character, and the visuals, sound design and ambience all contribute to it so goddamn well. And that Finale is legit one of the best i've come across in gaming period.
So uh, play it, but only if you feel you can take it, because it IS a very hard game. Not in terms of difficulty mind you, just in terms of...uh...taking it all in.
Edit (18/10/2022): I have different pronouns now, thank you Swery.
The gameplay is basically if Limbo or Inside decided to make death a mechanic. You struggle forward using the harm the environment brings to yourself, by using your limbs to solve different puzzles. In and of itself, it's just a dark twist on a pretty-overdone genre, but this gimmick in turn perfectly resonates with the core themes of the game and the story itself.
I'm sorry i'm keeping it vague, i genuinely want to say the least bit possible aside from what could genuinely hurt some people, so please heed the warnings of the first paragraph, and if it seems like it won't bother you TOO much, go ahead and play it.
The Missing is an absolutely breathtaking experience and one of the best uses of ludo-narrative in a game i've seen in a long time. You suffer along with the main character, and the visuals, sound design and ambience all contribute to it so goddamn well. And that Finale is legit one of the best i've come across in gaming period.
So uh, play it, but only if you feel you can take it, because it IS a very hard game. Not in terms of difficulty mind you, just in terms of...uh...taking it all in.
Edit (18/10/2022): I have different pronouns now, thank you Swery.