Fullbright’s Gone Home was one that drifted well below my radar when it originally released. It wasn’t until the hysteria died down years later, after its release on home consoles, that I found myself wandering the halls of this beautiful, mysterious Oregon home. I remember being unsure of my aim but enamoured by the sense that the Greenbriar home was a real, lived-in place.
Tacoma fails to recapture that initial intrigue Gone Home had, perhaps because we’re aware of Fullbright’s work now. But that doesn’t make the game’s story any less impactful. You walk and, sometimes, float through Tacoma’s eponymous space station as sub-contractor Amy Ferrier, assigned by the station’s parent company Venturis to collect data and retrieve the ship’s A.I. unit, ODIN.
But this isn’t Amy’s story, she’s merely the vehicle in which we experience the real story at play. The relationships of Tacoma’s six-person strong crew, those both onboard and back on-world, as they find themselves in a dire situation following a meteor impact.
Fullbright’s secret weapon is its characters. The same is true of Gone Home, but Tacoma’s cast is a brilliantly realised bunch who, though we only spend a brief handful of hours with them, leave a lasting impression. There’s real heart, soul and you honestly ache as their hope begins to diminish at the prospect of their looming mortality. Gone Home really only touched on Sam and Lonnie’s romance, whereas Tacoma spreads its attention across its seven core characters. As a result, each character’s arc perhaps isn’t as deep as in Fullbright’s debut, though they’re each relatable and believable.
Gone Home relied on player’s rummaging through drawers and finding notes to further the game’s plot and unlock Sam’s diary entries. Although Tacoma, likes its predecessor, is very much a game about exploration, it arms its player-character with an augmented-reality device which grants her the ability to review the recorded actions of the station’s once-present crew. Amy can also be present for conversations, the most gripping of which are the private ones characters have with ODIN. They act as a window into their minds as they continue to deal with the gravity of their situation, so many miles from home.
The same statement could also apply to the game’s voice actors, who sound as though they come from all over the globe. There’s even a talented Australian engineer among the crew, so that’s neat. All of Tacoma’s cast does a wonderful job of bringing their characters to life, from the pain in one character’s voice when they’re knowingly misleading another naive colleague to the terrifically ambiguous A.I. ODIN, whose arc stands out to me as the game’s most resonant.