One of the things video games do really well is absence – specifically recent absence. Dump me into a game world and give me enough clues that someone else has just left and I’ll be happy for hours. A cigar still sending up a ribbon of smoke from an overflowing ashtray, the wind plucking at a curtain where a window has been left just slightly open, a microwave that has some kind of horrible lasagne in it that’s still – jeepers – giving off a hint of steam? Games are brilliant at this kind of Marie Celeste set-up. Instant mystery. I don’t need actual people around. I just want to know who, what, why?
