Not all games need massive open-world stories with multiple side missions and enemies lurking around every corner. Some games only require a good story and a beautiful setting to keep players entertained. Such is the case with Lost Ember, a hidden gem of a title seemingly lost in a sea of AAA releases. But Lost Ember shines with a light all its own.
In Lost Ember, players take on the role of Wolf who is, as the name suggests, a wolf. But there is much more to Wolf than meets the eye. The game begins with Wolf meeting a lost spirit on its journey to the fabled City of Light, a place where people go after death. The story soon reveals that Wolf is also a lost spirit. The game’s goal is to accompany both lost souls to the City of Light while uncovering pasts that they have both forgotten. But Wolf has a unique skill that makes her journey special: she can possess other animals, allowing her to traverse the landscape in ways that her wolf paws cannot. As a bird, she can fly. As a fish, Wolf can swim. As a wombat, she can go through small tunnels. The possibilities are endless.
This is the beauty of Lost Ember. Being able to possess other creatures with various abilities allows her to cross a beautiful world and discover it for herself. Although it’s possible to play the game straight through without any distractions, players will find themselves wanting to flit around as a hummingbird or swim around as a fish just to see the world through new eyes. The world itself is vibrant and colorful, full of hidden items that are unimportant to gameplay, but still fun to find. As Wolf travels from memory to memory, it’s easy to get sidetracked by all there is to see. However, in the main story, Wolf’s recollections eventually uncover a bittersweet past filled with loss and violence. Although the story is short, it is easy to connect with and find emotionally fulfilling.
What’s most interesting about Lost Ember though is that there are no enemies, no bosses, and no threats of any kind. The gameplay is only about uncovering memories to help Wolf and the lost spirit remember what they’ve forgotten. There are also no puzzles, beyond figuring out which animal Wolf can possess to get to where she needs to go. Those animals are generally abundant, so these possessions become second nature after an hour of gameplay. Players don’t have to worry about a lot of button-mashing either.
However, Lost Ember isn’t without its faults. At times, there is some lag with Wolf freezing in her spot for several seconds. There are also moments when Wolf can occasionally get stuck, forcing players to restart from a checkpoint. These issues are minor, however, and don’t take much away from the sheer beauty of the game. Although Lost Ember isn’t perfect, Mooneye Studios has created a thing of beauty that allows players to see the world from a new perspective. And that alone makes it worth playing.
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Lost Ember is available for PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch. Screen Rant was provided a PS4 code for the purposes of this review.
