Season: A Letter to the Future in the test – A beautiful farewell letter from the present

Technically minimally unclean, but history and atmosphere are convincing across the board. One of the most beautiful and deepest indies I’ve played in a long time.

What would you write in a diary that you leave to future humanity? In Season: A Letter to the Future, young Estelle is faced with a task that is simple enough but has more depth than meets the eye. As you ride your bike through the three-dimensional cel-shaded world, you snap photos and record audio intended to evoke the Earth as you know it.

Where does black end and where does white begin?

The end of a so-called “season” is a recurring phenomenon that occurs every few generations and fundamentally changes the world. It’s up to you to capture the memories of your family, your city, your whole world in a single book – all with the knowledge that in a few days it will already be gone.

I really wanted to check out this title as I really like this type of thoughtful game. Estelle seems to be exactly my age, maybe a little younger, and already this difficult fate weighs on her. The premise is grandiose and especially with the climate crisis and the ever-growing social injustice in mind, a slight melancholy creeps into the fun of the game. How would Estelle write about our world? What would the people of the next season think of our earth?

Season: A Letter to the Future is an atmospheric, linear game that comes with a painterly graphic style and a soft color palette. Overall, the game feels calm, slow and leisurely. Although a huge tidal wave will soon wash away everything present, our final foray into this world feels impossibly peaceful and almost meditative. Shouldn’t we hurry? Well, that’s up to you.

You can take your time on small details or race through the world to complete your book. Even if you play slowly and take about ten hours to travel like me, there are still plenty of details that you missed. So would I play it again? Probably not, the magic of the first and last tour of discovery would have vanished and too many secrets would already have been revealed.

You are the author of your own memories

And what will you finally write? In addition to the beautiful sides, do you also report on the problems of this past world? We have to think carefully and also ask ourselves what will be left of our planet after the catastrophe. Will people know what a goat is? And what about wind chimes, trains or birdsong? It is not easy to compile the knowledge for posterity, especially since you have limited space in the book.

For each area there is often only a double page spread, on which only four or five photos fit. You can then place them where and how you like and even decorate the sides with flourishes and other elements. Creating the diary pages was a lot of fun for me, as it represents a nice creative change from the rather simple game mechanics.

Basically, you ride your bike through the areas and park it as soon as you want to take a picture or take a closer look. You can interact with various objects and people, and occasionally witness a paranormal phenomenon that allows you to eavesdrop on certain situations from the past. Most places are deserted, you rarely meet another person. Often you have to deduce the events from posters, placards or letters. What you take with you at the end of your trip is your own responsibility.

The small stumbling blocks, but not the end of the world

The cycling itself could feel a little cleaner and smoother. But that wasn’t really disturbing, because small imperfections like this hardly affect the atmosphere of the adventure, especially if you follow the game’s recommendation and take the controller at hand. At least my eyes were always on the horizon or new areas that I immediately wanted to explore and, still on the saddle, I wondered what this scenery would tell me about Estelle’s life and that of her contemporaries.

While I liked the slow pace of the game overall, there was a cutscene here and there that dragged on for way too long. Here I lapsed into a monotonous pressing of the texts, hoping that I would soon be able to get back on the bike. The world itself invites you to discover it and often motivated me to take small side paths or linger for a few minutes in pink fields or beautiful landscapes that seem strange and familiar at the same time.

Season: A Letter to the Future – Conclusion

Season: A Letter to the Future was a welcome little journey through a world so similar to ours, yet so different. History and atmosphere are in the foreground here, some questions are clarified, others are raised. The game makes you think, about Estelle, but also about our own world and what we consider important and worth preserving in it. We learn a lot about Estelle and if we let it go, we learn more about ourselves. Our choices we make in our world for our time. Small cutbacks when cycling and one or two chatterboxes hardly spoil the experience, because the core of the game remains great and the feeling of discovering, recording and tinkering is largely unaffected. If, like me, you occasionally simply switch off with a quiet title with depth in content, you will be happy here.

Season: A Letter to the Future – Rating: 8/10

Season: A Letter to the Future – Pros and Cons

Per:

• Painterly, timeless graphic style
• Profound premise that makes you think
• Lots of freedom, despite the linear design
• Creative handicraft inserts
• varied world

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Cons:

• It drags a little in some places
• Small technical imperfections

Developer: Scavenger’s Studio – Publishers: Scavenger’s Studio – Platforms: PC, PS5, PS4 – release: 31.1.2023 – Genre: adventure Price (RRP): 24.99 euros