The rise of AI is one of the great talking points of this moment in time, and one of our most prominent fears. Will AI start running the world, deciding our jobs, futures and freedoms? Who will watch the AI if the AI is watching us?
In Return to Grace, we find ourselves in the future, set up with the idea of AI being a theology in itself. People worship the AI being, putting all their hopes and dreams into their saviours of zeros and ones. That AI is called Grace and, hopefully, she will have all the answers to our future.
Return to Grace is a first-person narrative adventure with no combat, some puzzling, and a bit of platforming. It focuses on a story set in the year 3820 AD as we play an astronaut/archaeologist called Adie Ito. At the very start of the game, she is found landing on Jupiter’s moon, Ganymede. The landing goes wrong, she crashes and, much to the annoyance of her onboard AI, she sets off in search of something she has been looking for her entire life. That is Grace, the guide to humankind’s Golden Age. The thing is, she went missing over 900 years ago and Adie has sourced her location to this moon.
The story is excellent and well-crafted. It has a brilliantly engaging concept that keeps you engrossed through its three hours of playtime. The writing of the main character is superb and the unraveling of the cult of Grace is a brilliant mystery to discover.
As you progress you have to help a series of AIs, each with different personalities. One of them is Logic, a straightforward personality. Another is Control a sort of power maniac and zealot. There is Empathy, a hippy relaxed, a mother-type, and a sort of teenager one who likes the action and the risk called Pal. These characters, and the writing of them, is wonderful, funny, and charming. They make the game, and there’s a chance it could have gone very wrong indeed in different hands.
The gameplay works in the first person and requires you to walk around this moon and the interior of something called The Spire; a place where Grace might be hiding. You get to point at things to examine them, but also to jump or to climb up or onto items. There are some simple puzzles to work out along the way, like a whole door activation system where you have to draw a pattern from ancient Greek words or remember a sequence played out in front of you.
Other puzzles include working out electrical currents to get the right voltage by switching trip switches. There are some action sequences too; these involve a jet pack and a segment in which you are left to remove ice. There are also moments where you have to cross beams, keeping your nerve throughout. The gameplay elements are certainly challenging and I never found myself tiring of them; that’s always a bonus.
The visuals come with a pristine 1960’s sci-fi vibe to them. All the controls and computers are delivered in switch, tape deck and blinking coloured light form. It’s not a huge budget game and you can tell that at times, but the locations themselves are very impressive – a huge church arena that has memories of a rebellion stands out for me. The sound score is impressive as well with some lovely emotive music and excellent voice work throughout.
Return to Grace is like reading a great book in one sitting, or watching a comforting film on a Sunday afternoon. It’s not going to wow, nor show much that is new or fresh, but what it is capable of telling is an absorbing story in three hours with some excellent writing and voice-over. The exploration is good but linear, whilst the gameplay and puzzle-solving are simple. But for me, it’s the journey and how we get to the end which is the important factor. And Return to Grace doesn’t disappoint at all.Â
