Game Review: Lake

I’ve touched on the concept of escape in prior reviews like Stardew Valley, but there’s another opportunity here to really come to terms with the very idea of escape when it comes to video games.  Real life is anything but easy, filled with all sorts of challenges and difficulties we would much rather avoid than handle on a constant basis.  What I adore about video games is they feel designed on a fundamental level to provide us a means of escaping all the noise and the pressure for a brief period.  It’s interesting in this case when you have video game experiences designed on tapping into the reality of escape from a more realistic perspective. The idea of moving to a completely new town, starting a new job and building a new social network, all scary concepts rights? But in that vast unknown, there’s also a huge canvas of excitement to be had in that ambiguity.  Lake is a game which recognizes the concept of escape on a wonderfully insightful level. 

Designed by Dutch video game developer Gamious and published by Whitethorn Games; Lake plays as a third-person narrative focused adventure game.  Released originally on Xbox consoles in September 2021, the title soon followed onto PlayStation consoles the following year in April 2022.  The core focus of the game is about exploration and task completion as you aim to deliver mail across a remote lake town.  As you explore the area you will come to meet other character and form relationships with them which you can influence with a simplistic choice system. As it stands at today’s date, the game has an OpenCritic rating of around 67%, with 40% of major critics recommending it to play.

The narrative behind Lake follows Meredith Weiss, a woman in her middle years who has moved back out to her hometown of Providence Oaks in state of Oregan.  As a favor for her father who is currently away on vacation, she takes up the mantle of the town’s resident mail delivery driver and drives around the lake town delivering mail to its residents. Meredith hasn’t come back to Providence Oaks without her own baggage however, as she is also supporting on an IT project back in the big city during her time here.  As Meredith spends the days delivering the mail, she comes to meet new and old faces within the town and form relationships with them.  It’s through these relationships Meredith gets to experience a whole new layer to the home town she left so long ago and Meredith will need to decide on whether she can come to leave it all behind once more or whether she intends to stay. 

The narrative is small in scale and stakes, but that works in the games favor in my opinion.  The whole idea of Lake is geared around the smaller elements of life.  Driving around an idyllic town, forming connections with its residents, supporting them in their own struggles and making a new life for yourself; it’s all very ground level stuff to tackle in a video game.  Small problems are still problems though and the game invites you to approach the narrative in whatever format you wish.  It’s a nice approach, if not a little shallow though.  The town is big but there’s only an odd number of residents who you will actually interact with during your time in the game.  Some residents feel more like caricatures than actual people too, so it takes you out of the illusion a little bit when you can’t relate with them in a realistic sense. The characters that do have some realistic sense of definition to them are fun to interact with though and the small sub-plots you can join in on with them actually feel well paced and structured.  The narrative payoff of forming these bonds too is that you ingrain yourself more into the town and form a lasting relationship with it which pays off come the ending of the game when you have to make a vital choice. 

From the gameplay level, the game doesn’t really push the boat out all that much in terms of player interaction.  The whole concept of driving around the town and delivering mail is simple in its approach and can be quite pleasing on it’s initial set of days.  However, I did find myself getting quite strained by the repetition near the end of the game. This is likely attributed towards the game’s slow movement and controls.  When both Meredith and the mail delivery van have one set speed, it makes working your way around the large map area rather tedious as time goes on. It’s because of this I don’t really suggest you play this game for long continuous periods, because it will wear you out with its repetition quite quickly.  The choice system in regards to your interactions with characters feels nicely structured though, there’s a fair set of options on how you can interact with people and define a relationship with them. It’s really nice to see a smaller game like this keep consistent track of your choices and let the story branch out as extensively as it does. 

From a presentation end, the game uses a nice cell-shaded look to render its world and its characters. While charming on the surface, the game does show its budgetary limitation somewhat in this visual approach. Characters don’t emote all that much and have very static faces and Meredith doesn’t have all that many animations besides walking and delivering mail.  All small gripes for sure, but it does aid in taking you out of the illusion somewhat when the world shows its artificiality whether intentionally or not.  From an audio end, the soundtrack for the game is pretty nice.  As you’re driving a fair amount of the game, your radio will play a nice selection of actual licensed music. The music itself feels deliberately tuned to the country town aura the game is going for too.  It’s a nice selection of music that compliments the games’ themes nicely, but again the songs become repetitious after enough time due to the limited number of them and the long periods you’ll be driving. 

I know it sounds like I have more negative things to say about Lake than I do positive things, but it’s all about being transparent.  The games narrative and overall aura feels compelling enough that I invite anyone to give it a go. It really does it’s best to capture aspects of escape and restructure of one’s life in a unique and novel way.  What I take issue with is the format in which it delivers this intent.  It’s technical and gameplay offerings struggle to hide its limitations and it ends up holding up the game somewhat by its end.  If you’re able to dive into the game in small chunks though and forgive its repetition, you may come to appreciate Lake for the simple yet endearing experience it tries to be.