In Season: A Letter to the Future, you play as a young woman from a remote village exploring the world for the first time on a bicycle, gathering memories before a cataclysm washes away everything. rank. Your journey takes you to an unfamiliar valley, where the seeds of the Next Season have been planted. You meet the last remaining residents on the day just before they are evacuated. In this last moment, you try to piece together the mysteries of the valley. Every conversation, every landscape, brings you closer to understanding: What is this season and why is it over?
What is the story?
Most of the themes of “Season: A Letter to the Future” are expressions of the anxieties of our times. We are moving towards a future that we know will be worse than the present. As this becomes more certain, it takes on an even darker mindset: These bad years are also good times. The story exists to give some kind of poetic expression (i.e., mostly unbridled poetry, the subconscious mind on wheels) to these thoughts and feelings, to make them familiar. , tearing them apart and putting them together in a fantasy world. There is another major motif in the story: The Five Senses.
The senses or the way things feel
Games often call attention to your senses. The screen goes black several times when the character closes his eyes to listen for closer sounds. The way things taste, feel, or smell is often described as you explore. This theme is strongly expressed in many features only available on PlayStation 5. How do you feel about riding a bike? The adaptive triggers allow us to change drag depending on the speed or slope of the road, so going uphill will feel difficult. The haptic feedback also changes as you cycle through different types of terrain. When recording in-game audio, you hear the sound, but you also feel the shape of that sound when the DualSense controller vibrates.
Season also uses Tempest 3D AudioTech to add a deeper level of detail to the spatial dimensions of the sound. The world is filled with catchy sounds that demand this close examination. Music exists not only in the sheet music but as a part of the world, the instruments playing on their own, the tunes from the radio, the strange singing of the birds, the sound of the wind through the bamboo groves. These are rich details, but due to the importance of the subject matter that the game attaches to our senses, they take on an additional layer of meaning.
Interaction with the world and people
There are many different people you will meet on your adventure through the world of Season. When you catch them, each is preparing for the Season of Change in their own way. Join them in their final moments in their home and document their stories.
Kochi, a young boy, takes you on a bike tour of a valley the day before it flooded. Get to know the house he grew up in as he prepares for his final goodbyes.
Maytora, a pagan artist, chronicles the story of the valley through her sculptures. You are the only witness to her final work.
Easel was the last monk of Tieng Valley. Left behind by his teacher and friends, Easel awaits the change of Season in isolation, with nothing to pray for until you arrive.
You guide them through moments of silent crisis. In their lives, the change that comes to the world is not abstract, but immediate. They are trying to navigate, to survive, to find a way to live. You help them. You miss them. In your diary, take it with you.
- A beautiful bike ride: Glide through stunning landscapes on your bike. Slow down and take in the incredible views from one memorable scene to another.
- Explore a mysterious world: Meet a diverse cast of characters along your way who will change the course of your story. The land of Tieng Valley is open to you to explore, investigate and learn about its past and future.
- Documents, images and recordings: Collect memories, record and uncover the secrets of this Part before it ends. Your journal is the key to understanding this world.
- Beautiful background music: Listen to haunting music as you travel, a perfect accompaniment to your journey.
- Important options: Pay attention to your surroundings as you go through the story and tackle the final season of the Season. Choose the questions you ask your characters carefully, as these choices will impact your relationships and understanding of the world. Remember, what you collect will be saved for the next Season.
The gameplay of Season: A letter to the future focuses on exploring, documenting, meeting other people, and unraveling the strange world around you. Glide through stunning landscapes on your bike. At any point, you can get off the bus and carry a recording tool from your bag. Each captures a different element; sounds and music, art and architecture, voices of strangers, disappearing religious practices and traces of Seasons long gone. Your tools help you explore the world more thoroughly until you can grasp the culture, history, and ecosystem beneath it all. Season: A Letter to the Future will be available digitally on PlayStation 5 and Playstation 4 on January 31. You can pre-order it now or add it to your Favorites List!
