The culmination as the world unravels and remakes itself in breathtaking and beautiful ways.

This culminates in an experience that stays with you after you have finished playing. It's about speech as the basis for community, creation as a kind of exhalation, and the celestial catharsis of a bloody good shout. 'The game's not-quite-wordless story is broadly an exploration of transcendence and sacrifice,' wrote Edwin Evans-Thirlwell, 'with some familiar scriptural overtones, but within that, it's a fascinating meditation on the voice.

How does language establish community and how does that relate to larger powers? This manages to move beyond silver linings and common sense to press into complex territory about our voice and vanity of the words we say. There's no spoken narrative, but it's clear the experience asks questions about transcendence and sacrifice. As a bird you can call to other carrion for help as a boy you have a different dialogue with the world around you. What starts as a barren desert slowly gives up a rich and ancient history full of life. More than the interactive play, Vane is a game where your perspective on the world changes not only what you can see but how you feel about it. As you progress, the world reacts to your passage, evolving and building into something altogether different. Or, as the boy, you climb and jump your way through huge buildings. This involves landing on dilapidated structures to call other birds to help you swing it into action. You need to change between the two at particular places in the game, which you need to do frequently to solve puzzles and progress. Play involves exploring the world as either the bird or the child. It's a real hidden gem on PlayStation and PC (and one that will surely come to Switch?). These have since been fixed by the developer who also added more save points. It is not widely known as it had errors and bugs when first launched. Vane is a game that can stand alongside the likes of Ico, Abzu and Journey both in its visuals and its themes. As you do, the world itself responds to your presence and the simple sounds you speak. The premise is not all that uncommon, but Vane stands out for how you soar over the dessert and climb your way through dilapidated architecture and crow-infested oasis. Vane is an ethereal adventure in a ruined desert where strange golden dust transforms a free-spirited bird into a determined young child.

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