“In rays of the Light” is the newest walking simulator to flood the already diluted market; a remake of the 2012 game, The Light now available on console yet oddly, not on PC…at least for now. It’s ironic because the PC is usually the first to get these indie adventures, and it certainly would have been my first choice to play it had it been available. I was surprised it was being offered on the PlayStation 5, and given the lack of available titles for the new console I chose to review on that platform.
I’m a big fan of these games that present unique and beautiful environments to explore with an emotional score to enhance the experience. Sometimes these games can rely on simple discovery yet “In rays of the Light” throws in equal parts of puzzle-solving; although about half of the activities are more about unlocking Trophies than actually advancing the story. As with most games of the genre there is very little setup on who you are, why you are here, or what you’re supposed to do, leaving you with little choice but to blindly walk around and interact with everything that has a prompt or glows.
Regrettably, I lost complete interested in doing any of this about 15-20 minutes into the game, which mostly encompassed me exploring this abandoned building and its numerous rooms and levels, interacting with a dozen or so pictures, notes, and other documents, all of which added minimal atmosphere but told no story. Even after heading outside to search a broken down school bus and checkout the two outlying buildings I was ready to call it quits. Instead, I grabbed a walkthrough and simply followed along just to finish the experience for the sake of doing this review.
“In rays of the Light” has about one hour of content that might take 2-3 hours to complete based on how good you are with obtuse puzzles and unrewarding gameplay. The game also has two endings if you want to artificially extend the life of this uninspired adventure, but some of the insanely illogical puzzles will do that for you. For instance; there is one part of the game down in this dark basement that requires you to walk around a circular path of hallways three times before the exit magically appears. There is nothing in the game to remotely hint at this solution so I’m not sure how anyone is supposed to “solve” this puzzle rather than stumble on it in sheer frustration.
The game lacks any motivation or direction, leaving you to wander about until you stumble on the next puzzle or piece of glowing paper. All of the discoverable documents are tallied behind the scenes, and if you find them all you get a trophy but if you don’t, good luck finding the one (or few) that you missed. These documents are not part of any inventory, and they go right back to their original location after you read/view them.
I will say the music, composed by Dmitry Nikolaev was extremely pleasant and really set the mood for what could have been a great game had there been any purpose. I realize this was supposed to be a meditative quest, but I found it way more frustrating than relaxing. There was virtually no story, no antagonist, or any reason to be here other than to reach the confusing and rather abrupt ending. I had high hopes for this game going in as developer, Noskov Sergey created one of my favorite puzzle-games of 2019, 7th Sector, also available on PlayStation and I would encourage you to go play that game instead. It’s a far more entertaining and rewarding experience with puzzles that actually make sense.
Sadly I can’t recommend “In rays of the Light” even with the current lack of games available for the new console. The PS5 version didn’t seem to make any special use of the new hardware. I’m guessing load times are improved over the PS4, but you aren’t getting anything more out of this version than you would had the game been available on the PC. At least it’s only $8, but in this case you truly get what you pay for.
