Played on: PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4
While downloading The Artful Escape from the PlayStation Plus catalogue so I could complete it before it vacated the service, I also saw two other Annapurna Interactive-published games scheduled for removal in a couple of weeks at that time. One of these games was I Am Dead, developed by British indie studio, Hollow Ponds, who are actually about to re-team with Annapurna soon, for upcoming co-op multiplayer game, Flock. Seeing as I was on an Annapurna kick anyway, I decided to give I Am Dead a look. What's the worst that could happen, right?
In any case, I Am Dead's title makes it sound like it's either some kind of psychologically twisted horror game, or some kind of demented comedy game wherein you haunt hapless living souls or something. Surprisingly though, it is neither. Instead, the title rather earnestly describes the surprisingly wholesome state of your player character, a recently deceased museum curator named Morris Lupton.
Morris' ghost is now able to freely move in and out of objects and landscapes throughout his home island of Shelmerston, a fictional locale that's positioned near England and Scotland. Reunited with the (now fully sentient) spirit of his faithful dog, Sparky, Morris is given the opportunity to 'head West', the game's apparent term for entering the afterlife. The problem is, the island spirit guarding Shelmerston is weakening, and this is about to result in the island's dormant volcano reawakening, and destroying the entire town. Unable to turn away from a humble island hamlet that he spent his life documenting and preserving stories from, Morris, alongside Sparky, thus takes it upon himself to repair the wayward spirits of other recently departed Shelmerston citizens, who were acquainted with Morris in life, so Morris can offer them the job of becoming Shelmerston's new guardian spirit.
I Am Dead's charming British picture book-style presentation isn't anything special, but it does create a cozy experience that makes Shelmerston a very relaxing island to float through. Despite my playing it on PlayStation consoles as well, I Am Dead was actually a console exclusive on Nintendo Switch for almost a year after its initial release, not expanding to PlayStation and Xbox until the following Summer. That makes sense, considering that I Am Dead very much de-emphasizes technical polish, in favour of a laid-back, cozy puzzler experience, tasking players with paying attention to the memories of certain living Shelmerston citizens, and finding hidden objects throughout each of the game's six areas that can eventually help Morris repair the fragments of a guardian prospect's soul.
If you're a gamer, the phrase, "Hidden objects" probably jumped out at you. This is because I Am Dead is, at its core, a hidden object game, albeit one that gives you more freedom to explore, along with a good handful of challenging extras. These include riddles to solve, and a sizable chunk of collectibles strewn around each region, and Shelmerston at large. If you're the type of person that enjoys hidden object games, I Am Dead is probably one of the most robust around in fact, being relaxing, but also challenging to fully complete, at least, if you're not using a guide to identify where all of the game's objects are hidden. Believe me, some of these key objects, the optional ones in particular, are VERY deviously hidden too!
This simplistic, Switch-friendly gameplay also left no discernible difference between I Am Dead's PS5 and PS4 versions, both of which I platinumed, like The Artful Escape before them. Even if these two versions of I Am Dead are visually identical however, the PS5 version does at least make use of the adaptive triggers in the DualSense controller. This makes repairing memories and seeking objects feel a bit more immersive, and most importantly, slightly more accurate and efficient, when playing I Am Dead on PS5, in contrast to the still-good, but slightly less precise rumble inputs of the PS4 version.
Really though, you're probably immediately going to love or hate the fact that I Am Dead is essentially a hidden object game on steroids, with no middle ground. Myself? Well, I certainly enjoyed I Am Dead's contemplative themes about the power of memories and the processing of grief, but gameplay-wise, the game can get pretty tedious, especially if you're refusing to use a guide. Morris can mostly float freely across I Am Dead's nicely varied locations at least, but his movement patterns still feel a little too arbitrary at times, something that can especially be a nuisance while attempting to solve Shelmerston's (very!) strictly-timed riddles, which trophy hunters will have to do if they want to earn I Am Dead's Platinum Trophy.
I can't fault I Am Dead for how wholesome it is, just like I can't fault The Artful Escape for how colourful and creative it was. Somehow though, I Am Dead also manages to be even less engaging than The Artful Escape was, despite the fact that it's about trying to save an island town from volcanic annihilation. Perhaps I just don't like hidden object games enough to really get into it, but I Am Dead nonetheless unfortunately served as yet another Annapurna-published game wherein the gameplay was its weakest element, an issue shared not only by The Artful Escape, but also by Open Roads from earlier in my 100 Video Game Challenge for this year. At least Donut County and What Remains of Edith Finch managed to defy that unfortunate trend.
Plus, Shelmerston was relaxing enough to visit while it lasted, I suppose. Surprisingly, its best citizens are ghosts, and I can't help but get at least a bit of a kick out of that concept.
IF I HAD TO SCORE IT: 6/10
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