Her Story (PC)

While most mysteries dole out new clues at a measured and controlled pace to build up intrigue, Her Story utilizes a system where a player can very much stumble across a vital bit of info before they even understand some of the basics of the case. The fragmented presentation by way of video clips you need to look up feels like it would likely struggle to maintain interest if you can bumble your way to a key revelation so easily, but this surprisingly enough strengthens the mystery instead. Through some smart choices in the complexity of the investigation and what the clips contain, if you do unearth an unexpected major detail, it’s more likely to draw you in as you feel you must know the rest of the context.

 

When Her Story begins though, you are given almost no details on what you’re about to investigate. Presented with an old-fashioned computer screen, the player learns soon they’re looking into some old video files that are tied to a missing persons case. Y2K unfortunately lead to a database corruption so the set of interviews were scrambled and split apart, what was once seven full length interrogations lead by the British police now hundreds of unsorted tiny video clips. Luckily, the database does have a very strong search function, the player able to input a single word and pull up any clip where the interview subject said that word. There is a limit to how many will appear in the results, the player not able to simply type something like “the” or “no” and get a huge batch of clips so easily. This presentation style does lead to some of the first bits of clever design you’ll see, especially since the game autofills a suggested term for you to start with: murder.

The video clips you are presented with will often contain at least some nugget of useful information if you search such a charged term as “murder”, but more importantly, the game knows not to throw you too big of a bone for going for some obvious search terms. The missing person in this case is named Simon and the interview clips depict live action footage where his wife Hannah gives various accounts not just on the crime, but on her relationship with Simon and her life in general. Since some of the clips can be pretty small, many not even hitting the thirty second mark, there will be times in Her Story where you type in a term to try and skip ahead to some juicy details only to find some of the clips that come up were surely written just to be fruitless flags. At other times though, they can be the start of a spider web of potential jumping off points. It’s not too hard to identify some key words Hannah says you can then type in for your next search, the game achieving a bit of narrative linearity at times as you might not know something is even relevant to the case until she offers it up herself. There is still a solid chance you can come across a clip that presents some surprising news without you having followed a standard series of clues to reach it though, but the mystery is fairly deep so no single clip can give you all the necessary details to figure out the full scope of what happened.

 

While Simon’s disappearance and potentially tragic fate are the impetus for the police investigations you’re now viewing, the title of the game gives away that this is more a story about the woman you’ll be watching speak. Her Story’s leading lady is portrayed by Viva Seifert excellently, and since she carries the entire story on her back, it was vital she perform her role well. Hannah’s life becomes more vital to understand than the minutiae of events surrounding Simon’s disappearance as a deeper knowledge of Hannah’s personality and history helps you better interpret the details she’s providing. A good deal of the footage doesn’t even seem too concerned with addressing the investigation directly, Hannah given some time to show off her personality so that she becomes a well-rounded character to the point you can start gleaning information from abnormalities in her behavior. While there are interviews where she’s on her guard, at other times she is far more casual and might ramble on about some thought she had or a personal experience, building her up into a person rather than merely some font of details relevant to the case.

While Her Story provides some note-taking tools and the ability to save certain clips in a timeline if you want to reference their details later, the broader course of events surrounding the police investigation are actually pretty easy to eventually uncover so long as you don’t quit until you’ve found enough clips to do so. There is a good deal of direct information provided in the interviews, although since they were recorded at different dates, you will at least need to learn to identify when Hannah’s saying something to sort out some contradictions. Her Story doesn’t actually demand that you present your understanding of the mystery to complete it, the game just eventually asking if you feel you figured it out and rolling credits if you say you do. The resolution doesn’t seem too important so much as the actual unraveling of the truth, the complete understanding your reward for diligent work. Interestingly enough, while you can likely walk away feeling you know the most important details, Her Story does make sure there are questions to be asked if you start to think about certain moments in the interviews more deeply and consider how certain bits of information hang together. There could be something even more complex going on then the mystery that already can take a good deal of time to piece together, meaning there are deeper layers to be found if you do have an eye for details. You thankfully won’t need to scour the clips for tiny hints to pick these up either, but there is value in both taking what you watch on face value and thinking on things more critically.

 

For the interface itself, you can rewind clips if you want to double check a detail, although the subtitles do seem to mess up if you rewatch a clip immediately after it ends. When you search a term, an icon will mark which clips you haven’t watched before, and there is a database program on your simulated computer desktop that can serve a bit as a checklist as it will show how many clips you’ve found. Finding every clip isn’t at all necessary to know the full truth and there are certainly a few clips that likely exist just a booby traps for if you’re mindlessly throwing out words. This does prevent the player from being too flippant in how they approach the search function, but if you do want to see every clip, trying to find some of the clips like ones that are literally just Hannah asking for a drink or quickly answering a yes or no question from the unseen and unheard detectives can complicate your efforts. There are definitely some clips meant to be more humorous or delightful, Hannah even provided a guitar for unclear reasons since this is seemingly meant to be official investigations you’re watching but it’s hard to complain when it not only provides a solid singing performance from Viva Seifert but helps with some visual sorting. Hannah is dressed differently and in different rooms for certain interviews and these can help you sort out how reliable some info will be and which clips might relate to each other. The fragmentation never leaves Hannah being incomprehensible, most videos containing a complete thought or statement, and again it shows the deft hand of game director Sam Barlow as he knows when to stop a clip so that it provides tantalizing info but you’ll need to think a bit on how to find another relevant video to get the answers you’re now craving.

 

Even if you’re angling to see even the most mundane clips, Her Story is a game that can still fit into a single night of gaming fairly well and is probably best approached as a game that you aim to clear before your memories of certain details fade. Again it speaks to the strength of Sam Barlow’s editing that he can make a mystery as dense as Her Story fit in a reasonable time frame while still being fractured into a strong collection of meaningful pieces. The writing carries you on a story that can sometimes be amusingly absurd but still believably swing to unsettling information or tragic truths. You can very much empathize with the woman on the screen because she is so remarkably human, a believable set of characteristics holding together a story that can seem a little out there as certain elements come to light. The fact it can still be mature and emotional despite some dalliances into the unusual is just a testament to how all the right elements of the full-motion video presentation come together, and since you’re still involved in actually uncovering each clip, it still feels like you’re the one making these details come to light rather than just some passive observer of an oddly edited movie.

THE VERDICT: Uncovering the truth in Her Story isn’t necessarily difficult, but the way the investigation unfolds by way of the player hunting down clips on hunches and theories gives an interesting direction to their detective work. Viva Seifert’s performance adds extra dimension to a complex character who is clearly meant to be the real subject you’re pursuing, the video clips providing a deeply personal window into a well-realized woman with a history that can be darkly captivating, abnormal, or even a little comedic. Seeing everything on offer is not totally fulfilling, but the main plot and your growing understanding of Hannah doesn’t need to be a complete picture to still be a riveting narrative that works surprisingly well despite how much control is given to the player in terms of how they’ll uncover vital information.

 

And so, I give Her Story for PC…

A GREAT rating. The method through which you experience Her Story’s plot definitely provides a good deal of mileage in making it more compelling. The broad strokes of the truth you’re uncovering are fairly easy to digest, but by having the process of learning it all inevitably lead to a deeper understanding of the history and inner self of the person being interviewed, you get a far richer experience than just trying to unravel a mystery. This is undoubtedly why an accidental “spoiler” by way of a lucky hit on a vital video tape doesn’t cause the investigative work to crumble as the intent behind the design seems to be that Simon’s disappearance is a lure to draw you into coming to understand a character piece on the troubled life Hannah leads. Once you get over some odd elements like that guitar being thrown into the story with little justification, you can better appreciate that what we’re witnessing is a woman who has a deeper story to tell than just what she knows about a potential crime that was committed. Her life is relevant to the case so it’s not entirely a shift into a new subject, but it can definitely feel like there’s points where your motivation behind the words you type into the search bar are tied more to wanting to understand Hannah than trying to solve the mystery. While the editing definitely feels purposeful both in laying important traps to prevent you from uncovering far too much too quickly while still providing useful or entertaining clips of a reasonable size most of the time, it does feel like the game could have removed some of the more pointless ones like drink orders without harming the search system’s balance. Her Story makes you want to see everything only for some of those video clips to be empty and even a bit hard to come across naturally, but luckily you’ll have likely heard a fulfilling if oddly arranged tale before you scour the game for those last few clips so you don’t need to dig too deep to get the vital info.

 

You may still find yourself typing in random words and hoping in Her Story if you get stumped, but overall the interesting and unusual life story of Hannah unfurls surprisingly organically because it knows how to bait the hooks right to guide you towards captivating truths and information that is confusing in an enticing manner. The plot twists are a sound fit for the odd but effective presentation that emerges from the reliance on a player controlled search function, and the fact it doesn’t get too mired in the tiny details also ensures it never becomes an obtuse enigma you’d give up on solving. Her Story is a successful and compelling experiment in story-telling, the format encouraging you to dig deeper and pay attention so it can effectively craft this window into Hannah’s complicated existence.