ECHO (PS4) Review

Everything you do…counts against you.

I knew little to nothing about Echo before getting my hands on it. I had heard some rumblings about stealth and A. I. aspects, but really, I was drawing a blank. So without much expectations, I sat down one night, put on my headphones, and hit the play button. I’m sitting here now thinking about that experience, and as a sci-fi experience, it was completely enthralling and captivating in its entirety.

Something is wrong with this place

Admittedly, Echo is extremely heavy handed in story and exposition. Its first hour is mostly dialog and slow moving or walking, followed by story beats and more exposition. Playing as En, a woman who awakens on a ship devoid of life other than an A.I. companion that chats with her. They soon start to develop a friendship of sorts. Orbiting a nearby planet, they descend to restore the life of former friends, or at least that’s what I got out of it. When I stated it’s heavy handed, the lore and world Echo creates is one with many aspects, themes, and weird sci-fi naming conventions. It paints a somewhat messy picture, but it does seem to get easier to understand as more time is spent with the two characters.

MSRP: $15.99
Price I’d Pay: $15.99
Multiplayer: N/A
How long to beat: 6+ hours

After the initial hour though, something happens which changes the feeling of the game from something mysterious to something somewhat horrifying. I wouldn’t so much as call Echo a horror game, but I can’t shake the feelings of intense dread and horrific motions I felt. Exploring this derelict planet and facility, power surges coming on, and something beginning to shape and mold. My slight un-interest in the long winded exposition turned into sudden terror and panic. The slow drip of story ramped up and turned into a sudden uproar of unexpected events. If the story wasn’t as well told, voice acting as excellent, lightening effects hypnotic, or atmosphere not as accomplished as it is here, I could see the moment falling flat, but instead here it completely blew me away. This is all before the true gameplay even started to showcase itself.

After the initial start and the story elements starts to grow, gameplay starts to develop. Echo is an interesting mix between stealth, action, adventure, and storytelling. I won’t explain what the enemies are, but they are able to adapt and learn. If En decides to walk through water in an area and a power reset occurs, the enemies themselves will learn that water isn’t harmful and start coming after her on the next reboot. Decide to run or use firearms next time? The enemies will start to use those abilities on the next reboot. Now I know the idea of a reboot sounds odd since the context of this I didn’t spoil, but it’s important and will become very clear early on but its best this story element is learned during the experience.

Darkness

While Echo completely captivated me very strongly in its opening hours, it does have a tendency to lose a bit of that urgency or uncomfortable feelings. Not to say it loses it completely, but areas visually sort of bleed together and can feel repetitive. It goes with the themes and the whole game has this clean dystopian style to it, but it grows weary. Also, the A.I. learning is a great idea and leads to some excellent moments of tension or stealth, but sometimes it does feel like they are at a dis-advantage after learning how the system works. The ending itself was also a bit anticlimactic, though fitting. The biggest eye sore being the performance stuttering at times, being erratic and distracting at worst.

Echo truly surprised me in ways I didn’t expect. It’s very serious in its setting, absolutely nailing this mishmash of sci-fi horror and tension perfectly combined with stealth and A.I. elements that push the narrative further and extend to its moment to moment gameplay. I haven’t heard many people talking about Echo, and I surely hope that changes. If a sequel ever comes or a new setting with similar style ideas on gameplay emerge, count me in. Echo nails exactly what it’s going for. P.S. it has one of the most creative and cool looking start menus.

Review copy of game provided by publisher.

Written by
Justin is a long time passionate fan of games, not gaming drama. He loves anything horror related, archaeology inspired adventures, RPG goodness, Dr Pepper, and of course his family. When it comes to crunch time, he is a beast, yet rabies free we promise.