I’m going to just get this out of the way and say that Where The Heart Leads is one of the most unique video games that I have ever played. Does this make it good, oh yes. Does it make it great? I would also say yes.
When it comes to games, we often know what to expect. If we play a Mario game, then we are going to be jumping and platforms. If we play a Zelda game, there will be swords, monsters, and dungeons. I could go on with this, but even with the newer games, there is this “it’s all been done before feeling” about it.
With Where the Heart Leads, I wasn’t certain what to expect. I was enamored by the screenshots which showed a kind of surrealistic RPG, which is a great genre of game to play. I thought there would be some puzzle-solving of some type, and I really was prepared for the challenge.
What I didn’t expect was that I would be playing the great American novel. In Where the Heart Leads, you play Whit Anderson, a man who comes from a small town in the middle of Nowhere, U.S.A. The game proper begins as there is a strange sinkhole disaster, which causes you (Whit) to descend into the abysmal hole to seek out your dog. Your family lowers you into the giant hole via bathtub, and yes, this is very, very strange.
Then suddenly, the game goes all normal as the game suddenly turns into Whit’s life. It starts out showing what Whit was like as a teenager, and what type of childhood he has. The landscape is very odd, and it seems deliberately unfinished, as if he’s living in some fragment of reality with bottomless pit edges that he cannot fall off. Whit can interact with people, but they appear as this silver silhouettes, like ghosts.
This feels like one of these games where an action that you do will affect some gameplay down the line. The issue is that I don’t know if some seemingly minor choice can truly affect everything in the gameplay later. I honestly don’t know where to begin looking to see how far the story branches, but I am guessing that it is a lot.
Within this game, Whit is trying to help his small town prosper, but not try selling out doing it. He is trying to spend time with his wife and kids, but not sacrifice his career goals. In short, the game really is about life itself, and like life, there is really no score or perceivably any bigger goal than doing as much good as one can.
I think the best word that I can use to describe this game is “tender”, as you really are living the life of this one character. I know very few games that have achieved this level of cathartic quality, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we see more games like this.
Where the Heart Is is available for $24.99 on the PS4 and PS5 for about $24.99 and you can see more information about it here. I would say that it is very much worth its price and more.