Review: Immortality

destructoid.com:

It’s rare to see a magic trick pulled off in a video game the way Immortality does it.

By the time I knew something was up with Sam Barlow and Half Mermaid’s latest FMV mystery, I had already ripped open Pandora’s Box. I just didn’t know it yet. Little hints and bread crumbs were laying there. Percolating theories were just waiting to be blown open to something big. And I just kept tugging at the threads.

Immortality is the latest game from Barlow and co., and it sees Barlow returning to full-motion video similar to Her Story and Telling Lies. The most obvious difference is how the experience itself handles; rather than typing queries into a database, you have a reel setup similar to a classic Moviola machine and a crosshair.

Point that crosshair at something that catches your eye, and Immortality match cuts to another scene with a similar or same object. Then scrub through the footage, turning dials and knobs to your heart’s content. Find information. Learn. It’s the mechanical feeling of Immortality that absolutely floored me already, and kept this experience feeling so different even when some moments of Immortality felt a bit more shaky.

Immortality (PC [reviewed], Xbox Series X|S, Android, iOS, Mac)Developer: Sam Barlow, Half MermaidPublisher: Half MermaidReleased: August 30, 2022MSRP: $19.99

The actual framing of Immortality surrounds a found-film archive of Marissa Marcel, an up-and-coming actress who starred in just three movies. They were never released, and Marcel hasn’t been heard from since. Presented as an interactive slice of history, Immortality lets you jump through time between her roles: 1968’s Ambrosio, 1970’s Minsky, and 1999’s Two of Everything.

A mechanical feeling of locking in reels of film and