Carry Onward Review: What Comes After
Carry Onward is a gut-wrenchingly brilliant concept for a game. In Carry Onward, you pack up your belongings after experiencing a loss that has left you feeling empty. Andrey Chaudev takes the idea of Unpacking, twists it on it’s head, implements heartfelt choices, and surrounds the whole package with a grim theme while still sprinkling in hopeful overtones. In this short 30-minute experience, Andrey takes you on a journey that exudes emotion to the nth degree in the absolute best way, leaving you with only one option; self-reflection.
The Musical Icing to the Cake
Carry Onward is a top-down style title with simplistic 3D art reminiscent of games like 12 Minutes. The choices and narrative carry the experience, so if you do not vibe with the top-down style, you genuinely won’t care around five minutes in. While I think the style was both a technical limitation and a style choice, I was indifferent to the overall look.
Your character has a voice-over. If you remove photographs, he is the only character you see and hear within that game. His VO lines feel genuine and authentic while lacking something special regarding a memorable performance. Some lines fall a little flat, but it doesn’t feel like a performance in time, rather just a sad individual telling his story and adding to the overall somber tones.
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the music. Sometimes the music swells so timely and perfectly, helping me feel exactly what the dev wants. The music alone could assist me in evoking emotion, but packaged here; it’s the icing on the cake.
Immediate Emotional Attachment
You discover what happened to you and who you've lost immediately. Yet, you get to decide how they get together, how they approach each other and go about their lives. In seconds, you become attached to a couple and have them ripped away, making your character feel empty. These choices and stories quickly become both the crutch and the purpose of the experience. Luckily, it's a good crutch.
Choices, Memories, and Voice Overs
Within seconds of booting up Carry Onward, you are met with your first of many choices in setting up the scenario. Players can change their approach in other playthroughs quickly thanks to the game's short runtime.
Just like those opening moments, once inside the now emptying home, you can interact with photos or items within the home. Each photo you interact with prompts three choices like before with the same level of ease for replayability. Once you interact with said objects, the VO follows detailing your characters' thoughts about a particular memory while the other two options disappear for the rest of the game.
In a game already very short, implementing player-friendly behavior probably wasn't top of the pecking order. Nonetheless, when performing the actual packing segment players will see several corners filled with 6 or more boxes or other items. Once your character grabs one from the lot and slowly trudges his way to his car packing it in, the other from that same lot disappears making this slow play of being the moment feel like less of a chore.
Breakdown
Game: Carry Onward
Developer: Andrey Chudaev
Availability: PC
Reviewed on PC
Pros:
+ Immediate attachment to the protagonist
+ Great choices and options throughout the game
Cons:
-Inconsistent outcomes with music and voice over
Final Thoughts
Carry Onward made me miss my wife. She's totally fine, but this game's message was received loud and clear. Players will latch on to the message and it's all done in under an hour, or for some, two hours tops to see everything the title has to offer. Whether you give it a go for twenty minutes or 2 hours, you'll just get it.
Carry Onward is about finding hope not in the act of reminiscing, but in what's to come after and it's genuinely tragic yet beautiful. This game left me wanting more, but not only did the game not need it to convey the message, the more I now crave stems from beyond the controller.
Reviewed by Austin Ernst