Narrative video games can have a habit of overwhelming the player with dialogue and text. Fallout 4 reportedly had 111,000 lines of dialogue recorded, using it to help provide context and atmosphere to the game's take on a post-apocalyptic Boston. The Longest Road on Earth, from developers Brainwash Gang and TLR Games, eschews this trend by providing a character-focused game with no lines of dialogue or narrative-based text.
The Longest Road on Earth instead communicates four stories in a world of anthropomorphic animals. From a mouse living in solitude through to the parallel lives of a bear and bird working for the same shipping company, the game aims to provide an astute look at day-to-day life backed up by an original score. The game reaches its ambition in places, although doesn't quite overcome all the barriers that it sets for itself.
Thankfully, The Longest Road on Earth does hit the right notes often. The video game soundtrack from developer Beícoli is truly fantastic, setting an emotive tone that often ties in neatly to the messaging of each story well, whether through lyrics or the instrumental score. It's an evocative and integral part of The Longest Road on Earth's design, and the glue that holds its drifting, introspective style together, matching well with its black and white retro aesthetic.
The game also manages to portray its themes well. The Longest Road on Earth is a game that - without any words - speaks incisively about day-to-day reality, and the journey into this sinking groove from places of youth and desire. Whether through a workman's beloved time playing the piano, or the similar experiences of working a dull job on a transport ship and in the same company’s land-based office, the game leads the player to wonder how these characters ended up where they are.
The best section of The Longest Road on Earth sees the player controlling a young moose. The section runs through the childhood of the moose, from climbing out of his crib, playing with toys, and getting disciplined for naughty behaviour, all the way through to his own future as a parent. It acts as a miniature, video game version of Boyhood, and is truly excellent.
It's also undoubtedly the most exciting section of the game, albeit by design. The Longest Road on Earth is basic in its approach to gameplay, restricting the player to moving and pressing a single action key. This often focuses on menial tasks like hanging up washing, doing sit-ups, or mopping the floor, and ties into the game's emphasis on the mundane. The player is forced to sit silently on a train, or wait for a lift to descend, as the score plays in the background.
This is unfortunately also where The Longest Road on Earth hits a few stumbling blocks. Often its gameplay is deliberately repetitive and dull, to highlight the humdrum, but this isn't always the most engaging of gameplay experiences, particularly when some sections drag for just a little bit too long. After all, once the player gets the point of a specific scene, or has reached their own understanding of what is going on, then it can be tiresome to hang on after this point.
Something that may have helped is if the gameplay linked into The Longest Road on Earth's music. Having the player's minor actions causing a tweak in the soundtrack, or perhaps scene shifts like driving a car leading to a radio effect on the score, could have made the gameplay itself more engaging. After all, with such a large emphasis on music, it would have been impressive to see the game push this mechanic in interesting ways.
Even so, The Longest Road on Earth is still relatively successful. Its unique and interesting gimmick allows it to reach places that other indie games have yet to travel, although it does fall into limitations with just how engaging it can be thanks to its pacing and self-inflicted restrictive nature. Nonetheless, fans of character-centric experimental works will likely want to give this a go, and it's a useful blueprint for potential future innovation, too.
The Longest Road on Earth releases May 27, 2021 for PC. Screen Rant was provided with a PC download code for the purposes of this review.