7 Confusing Video Game Plots That Make More Sense Than You Think

When Dear Esther commercially released back in 2012, it received a huge amount of attention, some praising its storytelling while others criticising it as nothing more than a “walking simulator”. Regardless, storytelling is all the game really offers, and so its unsurprising that developer The Chinese Room would try and make it obscure.

There are a couple different reasons why many people consider the plot of Dear Esther to be confusing. Like Bioshock Infinite, the chronology of events that the narrator reads to Esther are all jumbled up. Not only that, but the narrator reads fragmented letters, which sometimes lack context. On top of that again, the game actually randomises the fragments which are read out, a feature which is intended to flesh out the story on repeat playthroughs.

The gist of the story? The narrator's wife Esther died after a driver named Paul crashed into her car on a motorway. He may have been drunk, he may not have been. Either way, riddled with guilt, Paul winds up dying himself some time after. That, in essence, is it.

The extremely flowery language used during the narration coupled with the mixed chronology, fragmented nature of the letters and randomised inclusions makes an extremely basic narrative seem bizarrely complex.