Lost Ember Is An Artful Exploration of Forgiveness and The Afterlife

Lost Ember lets players control a wolf and as it helps a lost soul. This companion seeks the City of Light and explains the story of the Yanran people as you go. It’s a heartwarming but bittersweet story. The soul has been locked out of the city, their afterlife. Players must discover who they were and what is stopping them from moving on. At the end, the spirit must confront their ideals which led to fatal results.

To progress through the world, players must find embers. These tell snippets of the soul’s story. Once enough have been gathered, the force field can be broken. Players also get to possess nearby animals when the wolf form doesn’t cut it; called “soul wandering”. Lost Embers is a fairly linear game, but you can explore and find more creatures or relics that explain lore. There are some animals that glow. They are eye-catching but other than causing a bit of eye strain, there’s no apparent reason to stray from the story path.

This is a fairly relaxing experience with some story drama. Other than some quick time events and no map to help navigate, there isn’t anything that should be a significant challenge. The game won’t tell where the next objective is. This leads to some time wasted from running in circles. Glitching and crashes happened, but were not frequent. 

Lost Embers is a story about anger, mistakes and, ultimately, forgiveness. His identity and crimes are revealed but before the player can really digest that, it’s over. The soul gets a reunion that doesn’t really feel deserved. Leading up to this, Lost Ember’s world is vibrant and detailed. Animals constantly running around give this sense of peace and liveliness. It makes the people’s grim fate hit harder. While also feeling a little unresolved. This game is definitely about the journey over the answers.