The term “Walking Simulator” often feels derogatory, but there’s no arguing that there have been at least a few worthwhile titles released in the last few years which fall under that category. From the brainy wit of The Stanley Parable to the agonizing emotion of Firewatch, these games have proven that masterpieces can be made with little more than the medium’s bare essentials. Yet, with that in mind, while The Park certainly does its best to elicit a response from its players, its short runtime and rigid, on-rails feel make it a tough title to recommend on the Switch.
Start Walkin'
A spinoff of the 2012 MMORPG The Secret World, The Park is, in terms of gameplay, about as separate from its source material as it gets. An incredibly linear, tediously-slow trod through an abandoned theme park coursing with black magic undertones, the bareboned slow burn of this title is downright antithetical to the outrageous action of its parent series.
Players step into the shoes of a mother, Lorraine, questing through an apparently abandoned theme park in pursuit of her missing child, Callum, who ran into the park after-hours in search of his missing teddy bear. A hoaky setup, maybe, but things soon fly off the rails as Lorraine’s quest to find her M.I.A. son quickly devolves into a sort of half-remembered nightmare full of mental illness, domestic strife, and demonic squirrel mascots.
The premise is that Lorraine must explore each of the park’s seven attractions in search of her son, and, though prowling through a decrepit funhouse or enduring the world’s most unnerving Tunnel of Love ride sounds engrossing enough on paper, the reality is that The Park never really delivers any particularly interesting scares or setpieces. Sure, some moments can catch players off-guard, but, on the whole, The Park feels akin to watching a mildly-frightening shade of paint dry.
Enjoy The Park (On Our Terms)
These issues are further compounded by the overwhelmingly linear nature of the game. Though experiences of this sort often don’t offer much in terms of player agency, The Park railroads players to such a degree that it could only really count as “interactive” if the same could be said about flipping through a DVD menu. The game doesn’t allow players to explore the park freely or really ever act on their own whims. Everything is gated or blocked off, save for the one non-optional path forward, and, in an ironically meta sense, the player character may as well be shuttled around in a cart ala a lame fairground haunted mansion attraction. In fact, that essentially happens on more than one occasion in the game.
What’s worse is that, though it’s unfair to deride a lower-budget game for its visuals, The Park has a very made-in-Unity aesthetic. This won’t bother most players, and it can be sort of beautifully eerie at times, but it’s undeniably a bit rough around the edges. The underpowered Switch hardware certainly isn’t helping anything either; the draw distance of some environmental assets, particularly the grass, is laughable.
Yet, The Park does have some redeeming qualities. It seeks to weave a disturbing and uncomfortably personal tale about love, instability, and the perversion of the traditional mother/son dynamic. It’s actually a fairly complicated story involving a desperately deranged single mother attempting to piece together her life without irrevocably damaging her child, whom she sometimes cares deeply for and sometimes threatens to harm. It’s mostly conveyed through an inner monologue from Lorraine, which is delivered with a lot more conviction than one would typically expect from a title of this caliber. Combine that with a cursed island and an amusement park apparently designed to harvest the happiness of children (or something like that), and you’ve got a narrative that, at the very least, is worth sitting through.
Unfortunately, the Achilles heel of The Park is its length. The game can more or less be completed in about an hour, maybe two for those who really like to drag their feet, and, once it's over, there is absolutely no reason to return. While that wouldn’t put off the sort of person who still buys physical copies of movies at a premium as soon as they release, it’s not going to be an attractive offer for most Switch gamers.
Scary On-The-Go
In fact, the Switch really isn’t the best place to experience this. Though it doesn’t necessarily challenge the hardware, it is far from the type of game best experienced in handheld mode on the go. Given that it’s likely to be found cheaper on either consoles or PC, a new player’s best bet would be to look elsewhere.
The Park isn’t a bad experience. Though it has more than a few flaws, it’s certainly one aimed at a very niche demographic. Dedicated walking simulator aficionados may find it worthwhile, but, at thirteen bucks, Switch owners may prefer to skip it in favor of some other horror release—scant though they may be on the system.
A Switch copy of The Park was purchased by TheGamer for this review. The Park is now available on the PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, and PC.