Dear Esther cover

Dear Esther

Dear Esther →

Critic score4 critics
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First release
Feb 14, 2012
Engine
Source
Genres
Indie, Adventure · Drama, Mystery, Fantasy
Platforms
PC (Microsoft Windows), Mac, Linux

Two years in the making, the highly anticipated Indie remake of the cult mod Dear Esther arrives on PC. Dear Esther immerses you in a stunningly realised world, a remote and desolate island somewhere in the outer Hebrides. As you step forwards, a voice begins to read fragments of a letter: "Dear Esther..." - and so begins a journey through one of the most original first-person games of recent years. Abandoning traditional gameplay for a pure story-driven experience, Dear Esther fuses its beautiful environments with a breathtaking soundtrack to tell a powerful story of love, loss, guilt and redemption.

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Details

Storyline, release dates, time to beat, age ratings, modes, links, keywords

Storyline
“A deserted island…a lost man…memories of a fatal crash…a book written by a dying explorer.” Dear Esther is a ghost story, told using first-person gaming technologies. Rather than traditional game-play the focus here is on exploration, uncovering the mystery of the island, of who you are and why you are here. Fragments of story are randomly uncovered when exploring the various locations of the island, making every each journey a unique experience. Forget the normal rules of play; if nothing seems real here, it’s because it may just be all a delusion. What is the significance of the aerial -- What happened on the motorway -- is the island real or imagined -- who is Esther and why has she chosen to summon you here? The answers are out there, on the lost beach, the windswept cliffs and buried in the darkness of the tunnels beneath the island… Or then again, they may just not be, after all…Read more

“A deserted island…a lost man…memories of a fatal crash…a book written by a dying explorer.” Dear Esther is a ghost story, told using first-person gaming technologies. Rather than traditional game-play the focus here is on exploration, uncovering the mystery of the island, of who you are and why you are here. Fragments of story are randomly uncovered when exploring the various locations of the island, making every each journey a unique experience. Forget the normal rules of play; if nothing seems real here, it’s because it may just be all a delusion. What is the significance of the aerial -- What happened on the motorway -- is the island real or imagined -- who is Esther and why has she chosen to summon you here? The answers are out there, on the lost beach, the windswept cliffs and buried in the darkness of the tunnels beneath the island… Or then again, they may just not be, after all…

Release dates
PC (Microsoft Windows)
Feb 14, 2012
Mac
May 15, 2012
Linux
May 28, 2013
Time to beatIGDB · recorded
Main + Extras
2h
Age ratings
PEGI 12
Game modes
Single player
Perspective
First person
Keywords
ghosts, exploration, casual, death, nature
… All 24, steam, walking simulator, silent protagonist, darkness, steam achievements, xbox controller support for pc, single-player only, steam cloud, voice acting, polygonal 3d, humble bundle, unreliable narrator, no hud, consolation achievements, mod origin, onlive, developer commentary, dynamic narrative, no combat

At a Glance

Critic Score
72
Main + Extras (IGDB)
2h
OverviewHow it playsMediaCommunityBehind the gameRelated

Overview

Steam review summary

Steam users rate this Mostly Positive, 6,119 reviews in all languages, recorded 16 October 2026

Valve's summary of Steam user reviews. Valve counts only reviews from purchases on Steam, not key activations, and leaves out review periods it has marked as off-topic. It isn't part of the CritScore score.

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