In the distant future, space archaeologist Adie has dedicated her life to finding the fabled A. I. called Grace. Grace was meant to be the pinnacle of human civilization, but all records of its location and the reason for its disappearance have been lost to time. Now Adie has followed a beacon and landed less than ceremoniously on the planet that could house Grace. This is where Return to Grace begins.
The narrative-heavy, first-person walking sim from Creative Bytes studio follows Adie on her journey to restore power to the aging structure she has stumbled across. Luckily for Adie, she is never alone, as she is accompanied by a multitude of A.I. personalities on her mission. Initially, her incredibly sassy ship A.I. Allen is with her, communicating through the technology on her wrist. Once she enters the Spire and interfaces with the older systems, Allen is replaced by a new voice and a new face.
Different colored emojis represent each personality Adie encounters. It’s lovely how much expression has been visually granted to these personalities through simple lines and color combinations. For example, Adie’s first point of contact is the even-tempered and yellow Logic. Logic explains what she knows about what happened to Grace, which isn’t much. She knows that she is part of Grace’s personality matrix and isn’t the only aspect, but she doesn’t know what caused the shutdown or fragmentation.
Your objective is to traverse the Spire, restoring power and solving problems when you can. The environment has a decidedly 1960s/BioShock feel, echoing Rapture’s visuals through architecture and color scheme. As you advance through the complex, you will need different aspects of Grace to access specific systems. For example, you will need to cooperate with Control to operate control panels. Etched in red and with delusions of grandeur, Control is complicated to work with. It also becomes obvious extremely early on that Control has a God complex of epic proportions.
Soon you will meet different personalities. The green and serene Empathy will have you doing yoga and breathing exercises while the newly created amalgam of Logic and Empathy, Pal, is a young child filled with wonder. There are more personalities to encounter as you scour the Spire trying to understand what happened and how to get Grace back online.
As for gameplay, Return to Grace has minimal interaction but offers choices. You can decide to listen to one personality over another, which may or may not change the outcome of your story. There’s minor “puzzle” solving that mainly revolves around choosing paths and operating mechanisms. Return to Grace is more about the experience than the actions. It’s about exploration and knowledge gathering and what makes us who we are. It also approaches religion from both sides of the story. The reasons why belief can be important and a lifeline for some and the problems that arise when blind faith finally crumbles into dissent.
Another aspect of the game that had me delighted was the achievements. I don’t always pay attention to the names of accomplishments; I just have to obtain them. However, the Creative Bytes team has inserted a plethora of pop culture references into the achievements. In particular, a reference to Short Circuit both shocked and delighted me. Who else is still thinking about Johnny 5 apart from me? Staff at Creative Bytes, apparently.
The strength of Return to Grace lies in the writing and the incredible voice acting. The cast is made up of known industry talents, including Karen Knox (Far Cry 6, Assassin’s Creed Syndicate), Athena Karkanis (Suit, House of Cards), Alexandra Ordolis (The Mist, Shadowhunters), and Dick Terhune (Diablo Immortal, Vampire the Masquerade: Swansong.) The cast spectacularly brings Each personality to life with great depth. Without such strong actors, Return to Grace could easily disappear into the sea of cautionary A. I. tales.
I did experience some graphical issues. It ran fine until I entered the higher levels of the Spire, when I suddenly experienced dropped frames. Despite dropping my settings to the lowest, it continued throughout the duration. I also encountered an audio bug involving one of the canisters you can find in the later levels. It played only silence and trapped me there forever, meaning I had to exit to the main menu. As there is no save function, this put me back a few minutes in progress. I still have no idea what that canister has to tell me.
Overall, Return to Grace is an experience almost entirely dependent on personality. It could have faded into the background in the hands of weaker stories and different actors.
Return to Grace is out now on Steam and Epic Games.
