The walking simulator is incredibly difficult to get right in video games. While always bordering on being too slow and repetitive in terms of gameplay, the more successful walking simulators are instead driven by a compelling narrative and powerful sense of mystery hidden beneath layers of intrigue, character development, and unexpected twists. Games like Gone Home and Firewatch have nailed this aspect, providing players with enough freedom of choice and an irresistible art direction to immerse them in the world. The Station, developed by a relatively small indie studio, attempts to walk in the shoes of its predecessors, but while it does hit that sweet spot for a very intriguing mystery set-up, it takes a few noticeable detours that might not sit well with players hoping for a fulfilling journey into interstellar space.

The Station puts players in the shoes of a recon specialist sent to survey a space station that lost contact with Earth. The station, operated by three brave travellers, was tasked with making contact with a sentient alien civilization in the midst of a galactic civil war. As you arrive on the station, you begin to piece together the mystery of exactly what unfolded, presumably leading to some interesting revelations about the characters and various personal predicaments they found themselves in, leading up to a whiplash of an ending.



The Station tries to tell a meaningful story about three people at odds with each other, desperately trying to survive the deep reaches of space under strange circumstances. Unfortunately, it doesn’t do an admirable job of conveying their characters well or their motivations, coming off as forced for the sake of plot progression. The characters, consisting of two male members and one female member, naturally develop some animosity among themselves when romantic feelings get involved, leading to some predictably melodramatic moments of emotional tension that never quite resonate as well as they should. What really propels the game forward is a superb sense of mystery that constantly lingers in the air.

Being in the presence of an mysterious alien civilization on board a seemingly deserted space station on their home planet is a terrifying situation, and The Station plays this off with finesse and extraordinary atmospheric build-up. The Station never feels like a lonely, isolated place due to the constant threat of an alien appearing around every corner, and even though we never see them for a large majority of the game, the thought of encountering one is alarmingly unsettling.



Like Jonathan Blow’s The Witness, The Station is also driven by puzzle-solving gameplay that usually involves finding and rearranging items scattered around the environment. Occasionally you’ll come across sealed doors that require unnecessarily complex codes, forcing you to search the area for clues and contraptions that might get you further into the heart of the station. These puzzles are a great way to flex your brain muscles, but aren’t the most challenging or complicated either. Some take as little as 2 minutes to solve, kind of diminishing the point of a demanding puzzle-solver. If this sounds a little too easy, then you might not enjoy all that The Station has to offer.

Due to the way the mystery of the game is built up, I expected a satisfying conclusion, or at the very least, something that would justify its unforgivably short play time (clocking in at just over an hour). However, the “twist” ending happens way too abruptly, leaving more questions than answers in the wake of its Twilight Zone-esque climax. It’s almost as if Ridley Scott and M. Night Shyamalan brought their minds together for the script. Depending on if you’re a fan of their films (and The Outer Limits), you might like the direction taken in the end, but personally, it doesn’t really work for me.



In the graphics and sound department, The Station truly shines. There’s some amazing attention to detail given to the aesthetic of the station itself, from the faint neon glow of objects around the environment to the Kubrickian style of the corridors and rooms, it never failed to captivate me. Framerate drops did occasionally happen, but never really broke that immersion throughout. The sound design comprises of atmospheric tinkles and brooding silence, but when the score kicks in, it’s a mesmerizing homage to the score of the films, Interstellar and Gravity. It really drives the huge plot developments forward, even if they’re less than satisfactory like the ending.

The Station does enough to be recommended to anyone who wants a very short burst of puzzle-solving with some genuinely gripping mystery and atmosphere, but it crumbles in the execution of the narrative itself. The characters aren’t very well-rounded and the puzzles are surprisingly easy, and with a divisive twist ending that hit me like a bulldozer (and not in the fun way… if that’s a thing), it’s safe to say that there’s at least some merit in the experience if you go in without expectations. Otherwise, there’s a better selection of walking simulators that might pique your interest more.