Review: A Long Journey to an Uncertain End

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One of the things I respect about the medium of video games is its ability to tackle difficult situations in a way that other mediums can’t. Even when it comes to non-visual mediums like, say, the written word, we’re only spectators. A video game can make things about us. Some empathy is still required, but we can be the ones trapped in an uncomfortable situation.

Sometimes this is too much. When I played He Fucked the Girl Out of Me last year, it actually dug up memories of (unrelated to the subject matter) trauma that I had repressed. It was for the best, but it was also a lot.

But it doesn’t always have to be a lot, as A Long Journey to an Uncertain End proves. You can approach difficult subjects carefully and with a light heart without minimizing the seriousness of it. If you asked me before playing it how such a thing would be possible, I probably wouldn’t have an answer. And yet, here it is.

A Long Journey to an Uncertain End (PC)Developer: Crispy CreativePublisher: Crispy Creative, Mooncat Games, Fig Publishing Inc.Released: June 28, 2023MSRP: TBA

In A Long Journey to an Uncertain End, you’re on the run from your abusive ex. Also, you’re a spaceship. Actually, you’re the AI pilot of a spaceship, but you’ve been “unshackled,” so you can feel the full spectrum of emotions. Your ex wasn’t treating you well, and after a particularly violent episode, you’re liberated by a crewmember and are off to, well, an uncertain end.

That may sound rather ridiculous, but the presentation is eerily realistic. Someone smashing the control panels of a vehicle may sound more like property damage, but I feel really gross for just writing that sentence. If that’s too outlandish to really latch onto, your ex-partner is also