SEASON: A letter to the future Review: Summer Lovin’
Reports of abuse allegations at the hand of Scavengers Studios’ Creative Director came to light in January 2021. Shortly after, he was reinstated after an investigation cleared all allegations. We’re unclear whether or not the investigation stands true, but where there is smoke, there tends to be fire. We will always stand with the victims of abuse. After internal discussions, we decided to publish our coverage for the many individuals who poured their everything into the development of SEASON.
End abuse. Promote the health and safety of developers who bring titles such as SEASON to life.
Leaving your hometown can be a difficult and scary decision. Fear of the unknown terrain, people, and challenges can force a hefty emotional toll. Layer this with premonitions of the end of the world as you know it, and it almost sounds too insurmountable. SEASON: A letter to the future, beautifully encapsulates this sense of doom while also pushing the player to see the beauty when closing a chapter in someone’s story.
Approaching the Beginning of the End
In SEASON, you play as Estelle, a character who lives in a small mountain community with her mother. Within this quiet town, a friend has a vision of this current season coming to an end. Seasons in this world are more synonymous with eras, which last for large stretches of time and often represent a major shift in world society. With this major world concern, Estelle decides to become the first person in a generation to leave the town and document the current season for future generations to observe and understand.
Through Estelle’s decisions, players are able to gain interesting and valuable information about the world of SEASON and how things progress. I immediately fell in love with the flushed out world building that doesn’t throw everything at the player at once. Instead, the narration with other characters, environmental storytelling, and attention to detail, really encouraged me to find out as much as I could about the world within the game. The characters in this world are unique, memorable, and produce thought provoking moments that lasted throughout my gaming sessions. Though there are some decisions with these conversations, I never felt like I missed out on dialogue options. Instead, the narration followed my thought process with the options chosen and never felt out of place.
In order to explore this world, you’re given a bicycle early on in the adventure. At first, it was a nice novelty to see the world in a scenic route; beautiful mountains, architecture from previous generations, wildlife, and more flowed through this world. Unfortunately, the moment to moment movements on the bicycle were a bit frustrating with its inconsistencies. On several occasions, I found myself stuck in the world (mostly when rocks were involved) which abruptly stopped my exploratory momentum. On more than a few occasions, I was stuck in the world and had to quit the game and reload. Luckily, nearly no progress was lost, but the inconvenience and concern about restarting the game was a noticeable mark on an otherwise incredible experience.
With this exploration of the world, the game also doesn’t force players to look into every nook and cranny to feel like they received a completed story. Moments are laid out throughout the game to get a more colorful representation of the main story. Happily, the game rewards players that delve into world events or character moments to contextualize actions for a more fleshed out story. Whether it’s a funny joke, emotional monologue, or explanation for other actions - these opportunities to expand the lore and world add beautiful shading to an already gorgeous work. There are several moments and areas within the game that accentuate this notion, and it’s definitely worth your time to explore and find them.
All the Colors of the Rainbow
In terms of gorgeousness, SEASON is an absolutely visually-stunning game. The cell-shading-inspired look is crisp, vibrant, and just enough whimsy to completely enthrall the experience. Add this to an incredible score and audio effects and I was hooked. It was a real pleasure to also see the minute details of all the characters’ expressions and body language, only to enhance the story and emotional toll for everyone.
Scrapbooking x Sociology
The main objective within SEASON is that Estelle is charged with collecting memories from this current season so that future generations are able to understand and experience what life was during this time. For the player, this means filling out and completing a journal with photos, drawings, and audio clips. Though the audio clips and drawings aren’t too customizable, the photo aspect of the game really lends itself to some creative sleuthing. With your camera out, you’re able to adjust the focus, lens, and several other options. Though I didn’t see any noticeable changes in how the game emphasizes the photos you took, creating your own unique perspective from the photos can enhance your own individual experience. As you progress through the story, various areas of the world will have their own page spreads, allowing you to customize the journal to your liking (while also fulfilling some minimal requirements). These requirements could include having at least 5 items in your spread, finding some documents to scrapbook in your journal, or even finding the answers to some mysteries. The enjoyment of scrapbooking the journal ended up being one of my favorite gameplay mechanics within SEASON. Deciding what audio clips or photos were worthy of future generations’ perspective of the “now” helped me curate a theme throughout the journal. Since this was such a customizable aspect of the game, I can’t wait to see other players’ perspectives on the world and how they decided to create this artifact.
What struck a powerful chord was the intersection of creating the journal and interacting with the world. Since the characters within the world are voice acted, you’re able to hear the emotional weight with everything they say. The comical moments, the emotionally gut wrenching moments, the scoffs - all of it was in the moment and wonderfully crafted. However, what I thought was such an interesting decision was having Estelle, the main character, only talk through the journal. What I mean by this is that, in the moment to moment of the game, Estelle’s voice actress is mute. Instead, Estelle communicates with the events of the game almost in a third-person perspective, as if reading the journal that is detailing the moments of the game. I thought this was such a smart way to bridge the present moments of the game while also reminding players that this season was concluding and that the journal’s intention was to create a history for future generations.
With all this, SEASON: A letter to the future, also has various accessibility options ready for players to adjust at their convenience. Larger text options for dialogue, vibration indicators, auto aim, and axis inversion were easy to adjust on throughout the gameplay.
Breakdown
Game: SEASON: A letter to the future
Developer: Scavengers
Availability: PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5
Reviewed on PlayStation 5
Pros:
+ Incredible visuals with artstyle and cinematic views
+ Compelling characters that contain depth, personality, and emotional attachment
+ Lived-in world with plenty of lore and backstory to sink your teeth into
Cons:
- Occasional glitches and hiccups with traversal with the bicycle
Final Thoughts
SEASON: A letter to the future is an amazing game that will immediately hook you. Whether it's the stunning visuals, subtle score, or compelling characters, there’s more than enough fantastic characteristics to propel you through this 6-10 hour adventure. So get on that bike, start exploring, and create your own journal for the next season!
Reviewed by Harry Loizides