Closer the Distance Review (Xbox Series X)

STAFF REVIEW of Closer the Distance (Xbox Series X)

Friday, September 13, 2024.
by Peggy Doyle

Because I am a gamer of a certain age, I tend to have many more life experiences under my belt than some others might. I’ve experienced love and loss, heartbreak, and grief. And while I don’t actively seek these types of games out to play and review, they often find their way to me. It’s one of the reasons I love Indie games so much, as they tend to have a way of reaching a gamer and speaking to them in a way a lot of larger games simply can’t. I start by saying this because Closer the Distance was a game that caught me by surprise and its impact still has me thinking about it weeks later. There are some warnings at the beginning of the game, including mentions of accidental death, a funeral, mental health issues, and alcohol abuse amongst others. This is a highly narrative-driven game, so these things are talked about more than actually seen in the game. Developed by Osmotic Games and published by Skybound Games, Closer the Distance is a life sim, mixing authored drama with life sim gameplay.

Closer the Distance starts with overhearing a woman speaking about how there is comfort in knowing life is moving around her even if she isn’t directly involved in it. She talks about her neighbours and friends in a very motherly tone. Yesterby, the town they live in, seems to be quite a close-knit community. Next, we see a police car pull up to a home. We are viewing this from above, almost like watching a doll house. We see a family inside, two parents and a daughter (Conny), but the parents are annoyed that their eldest daughter (Angie) is late for dinner. They are bickering, but this is cut short when the doorbell rings. When the parents tell Conny to go upstairs, she peeks at the door and sees the police. You can figure out what’s happening before the game even tells you; Angie has been killed in a car accident.

As you direct Conny into Angie’s room, you are given a prompt to interact with Conny. This jolts Conny as you are now Angie’s ghost interacting and speaking to her. You will relive a memory of the two of you together, and once the cut scene ends you are controlling Conny again. Following direction from Angie you will look around the room piecing together what Angie was doing and where she was going on her last moments at home. As your parents try to break the news to Conny, they are assuming the worst possible situation, but because you can communicate with Angie, you know that everything will be okay if you just listen to her.

This opening sets the tone for the rest of the game as you control Conny, using her to help the town navigate their grief and deal with your death. As you interact with different people in the town you will eventually be able to control some of them as well, opening up additional stories. There are many layers of complexity in, what appears on the surface to be a straightforward game. Gameplay is very reminiscent of any of the Sims games in that you click on a character move them to a place, click on another character to interact with and choose dialogue options. Your conversations will affect the relationships you have with these characters, so choose wisely. Some choices will close off other storylines and can affect your ability to snag all the achievements in one playthrough. There are 14 unique and fully simulated characters, each with their own relationships, emotional states, and stories of their own.

Along with working through the need of the townspeople, you also must deal with your own needs. These are shown on the side of the screen and include things like hunger, rest, and solitude. Choose activities to fulfill these needs and replenish their bars. Each character has their own preferences of hobbies as well, like playing guitar, writing in journals, cooking, etc. Adding another layer to the gameplay is the fact that each character has their own schedule, just like in real life. Some characters are early risers, while others are night owls for example. You will need to manage the time spent with each character wisely. Trying to manage each character's needs versus what you think they should be doing creates a struggle in time management but also weighed on me in an emotional way I wasn’t expecting.

As someone who has gone through the grieving process, I had a lot of empathy for these characters who weren’t even real. They each were grieving in their own way and the game did an excellent job of making me feel that these people were indeed real. Some characters hit home harder than others and I found myself in a real struggle as to how to manage some of the more complex relationships in the game. How much of yourself do you sacrifice helping others deal with their feelings? Tackling tasks like helping to dig a grave for someone's daughter or making a wreath or headstone could feel like a mundane task in a game until you put yourself into their shoes and think about what that would actually feel like for these people. Everything in Closer the Distance has grief running through it.

Each character is fully voiced and impeccably acted. Every character felt different even though the town and characters could be anyone from anywhere. Every conversation felt authentic and familiar. Because of this familiarity, I found myself moved to tears more than once while playing. While you (Angie) are trying to help the town move on with their lives, they don’t want to let go of you. There was something beautiful, yet raw about the feelings this game brought up in me. I remember finishing it and immediately messaging a friend and just saying ‘wow’ at first, then going on and on about the game.

With as many things I loved about Closer the Distance, it’s not perfect in its execution of the gameplay, as the controls can be a little finicky at times. Not enough to take me out of the game, but it felt at times that it would have been easier using a mouse instead of a controller. Sometimes scenes felt unnatural, like if there was a conversation between two characters and a third happened to be in the room they would just stand there waiting for their turn to speak instead of standing a little further away like they would in reality. Minor complaints and nothing worth deducting from my overall score and thoughts of the game. Where my major complaint lies is the character of Laul, a traveling musician, who shows up later in the game, didn’t know Angie and is, for some reason, poking his nose into everyone's lives. He irrationally annoyed me and all I wanted to do was skip over all of his story.

Overall, I’ve never really played a game like Closer the Distance, and it’s one of the reasons this review took longer to write. I had a lot of big feeling about the game and its themes. Somehow this rated Teen game found a way to delve into some very deep topics without glossing over them or making them too light. There were some heartbreaking moments and some moments of levity too. All of that is true with the grieving process. Sometimes you will be sad, and other moments you will think of happier times and share a laugh with people who also knew the person you’ve lost. I often think about the line I heard somewhere that grief is really just all the love you never got to show someone. It’s a line I think of often and the developers found a way to make this game feel authentic and I appreciate them for that.

**Closer the Distance was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**

Overall: 9.0 / 10
Gameplay: 9.0 / 10
Visuals: 8.5 / 10
Sound: 9.0 / 10

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STAFF REVIEW of Closer the Distance (Xbox Series X)

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