Season: A Letter to the Future review – a thoughtful premise with some minor snags
Do you keep a journal? I used to. Initially, I tipped all my kid-shaped thoughts into a book with citrus-scented pages, and then my teenage dreams and devastations fell into a navy diary with golden trim and a flimsy lock. Several years later, I moved on to blogging and learned, very much the hard way, not to blast every waking thought and irritation onto the internet.
Season reviewDeveloper: Scavengers StudioPublisher: Scavengers StudioPlatform: Played on PS5Availability: Out January 31 on PC, PS4, PS5
My journal was a confidante. Sometimes, a therapist. But with every other tangent and run-on sentence – some things never change, I guess – it’s hard to imagine them being interesting to anyone in years to come. It was not, and never will be, an anthropological artefact to house the sights, sounds, and souls of a dying civilisation.
That’s what Estelle set out to create, though. Unsettled by a portentous dream, her people prepare for the changing season, a poetic phrase that marks the end of the world; well, the end of the world as these people know it, anyway. But even though the fine folk of Caro are nestled high up in the clouds and safe from the turmoil below, Estelle wants to do more than sit and accept the season’s end this time. Instead, she wants to archive the current season to inform and educate those in the seasons yet to come.
And so begins Season: a Letter to the Future, a gentle, melancholic adventure that sees Estelle leave Caro and explore the world beneath it, overwhelming her senses with sights, sounds, and sensations she’s never felt before. Armed with a polaroid camera, Estelle snaps anything she finds noteworthy – you’re the judge of what is and isn’t interesting – and pops it into her journal. The same goes for sound clips; with a mic and recorder, she can tape intriguing soundscapes and magically embed those in her notes. She’s also a skilled artist, too, able to sketch monochrome facsimiles of the many stunning vistas she encounters.
