Keeper Review – A Soothing Walk Through a Surreal World

Keeper Review

It seems like a while since we’ve had a proper walking simulator, and Baby Steps doesn’t count. You know, a relaxed game that isn’t entirely goal-less but is focused more on tone than combat, atmosphere more than action. Keeper fits the bill. There’s no combat, no fail state, no spoken or written dialogue. There’s a narrative, though it’s kind of oblique, and puzzles, though they’re not head-scratchers, ever. As Double Fine’s Tim Schafer described it, Keeper is “weird but chill.”

Under Wraps

Keeper is about an ambulatory lighthouse and a seabird setting off on a journey together across the most colorful post-apocalyptic landscape imaginable. Post-apocalyptic might be an exaggeration. There are husks of buildings, abandoned vehicles, and no people, so you can do the calculus. In any case, the landscapes are inspired by surrealist painters and film. The story is a post-Covid meditation on the importance of connection.

In the case of Keeper, the journey is the story, so I won’t spoil it with details. Discovery is key to the experience. As the pair journeys towards some distant mountains and a few mysteries to be revealed, the biomes change. Sometimes they’re lush with day-glo vegetation, and often they’re drenched in saturated dark shades.

The lighthouse moves with the inelegant motion we associate with stop-motion animation, though that isn’t the style. Any game or film that doesn’t express emotion via faces or familiar forms has a challenge. Keeper does a good job of making the player understand the subtle emotional landscape without words or familiar gestures. The music and soundscape help sell the emotional temperature changes.

Is There a Game?

While simple forward movement and guided exploration are at the core of Keeper, there are a few mechanics to help remind us that we’re playing a game. The lighthouse has a sort of multitool in the form of its light, which can illuminate important objects. When focused, the light can make changes in the world, like opening blocked paths. You can send your avian companion to help manipulate objects, too, emphasizing the thematic importance of teamwork.

There are lots of environmental puzzles, but most of the time the solutions are explicitly prompted. The game does a good job of introducing its palette of mechanics but rarely lets the player creatively use them.

This really gets to the heart of one problem with Keeper. Too often the puzzles feel like minor moments of busywork without any real payoff except moving forward. Occasionally, they reveal a little bit of environmental story telling, but not often enough. Sure, I can send the seabird to pick up a bauble to insert in a statue to open a door (as the game instructs), but doing so doesn’t make me feel smart or clever.

Hunt and Peck

Fulfilling the mechanical requirements of solving a puzzle brings us to another frustration. The lighthouse’s beam is incredibly imprecise and frustrating to use, and often feels like it has a mind of its own. Additionally, the game determines where the camera is facing and there’s no free rotation. It gives the game a very constricted sense of movement. Telling the player what they can look at takes away the feeling of agency and discovery. Games about finding something new need to allow the player to get lost and reward them for it. It also takes away even the remote chance for a replay.

Keeper’s music and environmental audio do a pretty good job of filling in for dialogue and providing some much needed emotional reinforcement. On the Xbox Series X I did have a number of odd graphical anomalies that will hopefully be patched out at or before launch.

The Journey or the Destination

It’s almost always a relief to play a game like Keeper, where there’s no carnage or frenetic energy, and where the pace and tone are understated. Keeper is colorful, and the makers have definitely succeeded in their stated goal of making a weird, chill game. It’s also kind of a dull experience, with too little player agency, some frustrating mechanics, and a sense of discovery muted by too many restrictions and guideposts. Keeper is a generally pleasant journey through a psychedelic landscape and it isn’t too thematically heavy handed. I just wish it was a little more fun to take the trip.

***Xbox code provided by the publisher for review***