Review By Leemo
Don’t let the name fool you, this ain’t no walk in the park
Welcome to a fantastical, beautifully crafted and colourful world. The Sojourn is the first game to come from a new studio; Shifting Tides. If this is their first attempt at a game then we all have something to look forward to.
Shifting Tides is a studio that focuses primarily on puzzles and storytelling and they have managed to do just that.
Upon starting, a wisp of pure golden light beckons you forth. Looking around you’ll see nothing but darkness, further on through a short corridor the-wisp continues. A room opens up to you and the wisp moves around, lighting the space. You move towards it and come to a large door.
“We open our eyes in hopes of seeing what lies before us but all we realize is how alien our world is”
The telling of a silent story begins.
The Sojourn is a game that makes you think about how you progress, about how to progress. The reward for completing a series of puzzles is a little more story. When starting a level the world builds itself around you: bright light contrasted with darkness.
As you progress, the difficulty ramps up and requires you to use more brainpower to figure it out. With the power of darkness, you are able to swap places with a statue or make a harp play a song and doing so pushes you forward to the end of the level.
As you move on the difficulty goes into high gear. Don’t allow yourself to get annoyed; there is always a solution. Think outside the box and most importantly try not to look for the correct path on YouTube, doing so will rob you of the accomplishment, especially in the later levels.
The Sojourn is an interesting game. Its puzzles are puzzling and its stories are compelling. If you are the sort of person who enjoys a challenge then this is for you.
Ultimately this is a tried and tested genre, its difficult to be original with so many similar games already released (thinking of “the witness”). There are a couple of new ideas but not enough to create a frenzy. It’s a fantastic first try and we at stoffelpresents are very much looking forward to what they bring to the table next.
It gets a respectable 6.5/10
A good game worthy of a few hours.
You can pick it up on PS4 for £17.99 or Xbox for £19.99 and it will be coming to steam in 2020.
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