I love walking simulators. I love the quiet exploration and the creeping sense of time that comes with them. It’s just you, the story, and the atmosphere around you. They’re simple games - indeed, some would argue they’re not games at all - but there’s a quiet catharsis in that simplicity. I like to sit down on a rainy afternoon and just go on a walk, adventure in someone’s story, and see where the story takes me.

In 35MM, the story takes you to a post-apocalyptic Russia. It’s empty and silent, and as you and your partner walk to…somewhere for…some reason. You do little tasks to ensure your survival as you navigate from place to place and tiny story to tiny story. The game has an overarcing narrative - you and your partner are walking to a place to fulfil a promise - but that narrative isn’t really the point. If anything, the game very much feels like a collection of vignettes about travelling across Russia, each with its own minigame, and each with its own piece of the story of this time and this place. It’s haunting, and there are moments where it’s easy to get lost in the atmosphere, to feel enveloped in the trees, in the grey sunlight, in a tiny empty cabin now devoid of life.

That’s the question with 35MM, though, and the question that stuck with me when I went to write this review. As a game, 35MM is not particularly good. The minigames are frustrating in their mechanics - I am not and never will be very good at quicktime events - and the puzzles can break immersion with their finnickiness. I did not finish the game because I got to a section of subway where I understood what the clues pointed to, I understood what to do, but I could not get the game to cooperate with me. I stood there in a dark tunnel, immersion broken, finger hovering over ESC, and just annoyed.

This is ultimately the paradox of 35MM. I stand in its beautiful and lovingly designed landscapes, immersed in the emotion and atmosphere of it. It’s very easy to slip into the main character’s skin and feel what it is to be in this place and this moment, but that’s all there is. When the atmosphere moves into actual gameplay, the game loses me. The mechanics and puzzles are clunky, the dialogue is slow, and more than anything, it serves to remind you you’re playing a game.

More than anything, 35MM feels like a road trip. It is long, slow, boring views through a window at a landscape you are currently part of, punctuated by stops that may be tedious or briefly fun, depending on the stop, before getting back on the long, long road to wherever it is you are going.

I personally love road trips. I love the bits of this game that are a road trip. I don’t really care for the sections of the game that try to be a game. But especially when I haven’t really left my home in months, going on a three hour road trip across Russia, complete with frustrations and zen-like nothing, was exactly what I needed.

Developer: Сергей Носков

Genre: Indie, Walking Simulator

Country: Russia

Language: English

Play Time: 3-4 Hours

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