The Park (video game)

Gameplay

The Park is experienced from a first-person perspective as the player interacts with and experiences the decrepit environment of Atlantic Island Park. There is no combat or defense and the player has no health HUD as Lorraine can only interact with limited objects in-game and there are no enemies to battle. These objects mostly consist of pages that reveal the backstory of the park and later, Lorraine. Lorraine can call out to Callum at any time during gameplay, and this may have a small affect as it allows Lorraine to follow Callum's voice and thus continue the narrative of the story or to reach necessary areas or objectives within the park such as the rides. The rides act as both exposition and scares. To enter the House of Horrors, Lorraine must find a torch. Throughout the game, Lorraine narrates her feelings and memories to the player.

Plot

The game follows Lorraine, a struggling single mother and widow with a troubled past, as she searches for her young son, Callum, who goes missing in Atlantic Island Park. Lorraine enters the park after her son just as the park prepares to close for the afternoon, only to find that nighttime comes unnaturally fast as she ascends the escalator and discovers the park to be abandoned, vandalized and rundown as if several years have passed. Despite abandonment, the rides and lights mysteriously still function. Lorraine calls for Callum and his voice calls to her, leading her through the decrepit park.

Lorraine boards several rides which reveal the themes and backstory of the game: the Tunnel of Tales tells the story of Hansel and Gretel, and how their cruel mother abandoned them in the forest and a witch captured them. The Tunnel adds a new ending - after cooking the witch in the oven, Hansel and Gretel devour her. On the Ferris Wheel, Lorraine remembers Callum's father Don, a construction worker at the park who died while she was pregnant with him, falling from the Ferris Wheel. The park's grounds are hinted to have a sinister history that tainted them, as a consequence of the old owner Old Man Henderson's actions, which the new owner Mr. Winter tried to take advantage of. Recurring images of 'Chad the Chipmunk', the park's mascot, occur. Accounts of Steve, the employee wearing the chipmunk suit, becoming disturbed and murderous are found - Steve apparently never removed the suit even on days off. The park was closed at one point due to a large number of accidents and murders, largely affecting children, including over a dozen who vanished inside the House of Horrors - the entrance to which is modelled on a witch with a gaping mouth.

Lorraine expresses her frustration with Callum, her belief that she is a failure as a mother, her history of mental health problems, and her fear that Callum is becoming changed by some mysterious threat. During the rides, a monstrous top-hatted figure is seen inside the operating booth. Aboard the roller coaster, it threatens her and claims 'the Witch' has her son. At last Lorraine enters the witch-faced House of Horrors, still following Callum, and remarking on the similarity between this and the Hansel and Gretel story. Inside, she encounters the hatted figure. Messages from Mr. Winter reveal that he retreated into the House with his machines when the Park closed, claiming he was seeking immortality.

The interior of the House changes to a loop of Lorraine and Callum's own home through time, where it is revealed that Lorraine's father abducted her as a child, her estranged mother refuses to help her, and she suffered from depression when Callum was born and given electroshock therapy. As Lorraine passes through each version of her house, it becomes more decrepit and disturbing. At the end, she finds a message by Mr. Winter revealing that he needs children for his unspecified machines. Lorraine reveals that in the oldest versions of the Hansel and Gretel story, the cruel mother and the Witch were the same person, and that she believes she is the real Witch. Finally, she reaches Callum, lying unconscious on a slab. Chad the Chipmunk appears behind her, then is replaced by the monstrous hatted figure. The figure gives her a bloody icepick, then guides her hands so she holds the point above Callum's chest. The monstrous figure vanishes. Lorraine stabs Callum.

Afterwards, Lorraine is sitting in a police station, and the sheriff, echoing the words of the Park gatekeeper (who he resembles) tells her not to worry about losing things and to think of the last place she saw her son. The identity of Mr. Winter, Steve and Old Man Henderson; their motivations; the purpose of the park and how much of the game's events and characters were real or in Lorraine's head is left ambiguous.

Development

The Park was announced by Funcom on August 26, 2015. According to Funcom's Rui Casais, the games' development began as an experiment by a small team. The team hoped to utilize the worlds from their previous massively multiplayer online games, and reshape them into some smaller single-player games. According to Casasis, it was "creatively energising" for the team to work on a new single-player game as their last game with a single-player focus was Dreamfall: The Longest Journey in 2006. The game's universe is based on 2012's The Secret World.

The game was announced for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in November 2015. Funcom later announced that the console versions will be released on May 3, 2016, making it the first Funcom game developed for consoles since Dreamfall in 2006.

Reception

The game currently holds a rating of 55 out of 100 on Metacritic based on 14 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews".