This is a series of stories that creates a game about telling
stories, and indeed portrays the act of being a game about telling
stories. Its ending is something I’ve never seen any game do before,
and yet feels so perfectly in keeping with everything that comes
before it. This is a fantastic achievement.
Welcome to Elk feels like a play turned into a video game. A shocking, but also heartwarming adventure, we recommend to everyone who’s interested in a story-based experience.
I think Welcome to Elk is one of those games where the less you know about it going in, the better. That might seem an odd thing to write after a few hundred words trying to describe it, but it’s also so unique and unusual that whatever expectations you might have, they’re almost certainly not going to prepare you for what’s inside. And in a game so fundamentally about stories—not just telling stories that would otherwise risk being forgotten, but exploring the way stories are told and the lives they take on in the process—that willingness to reject expectations goes a long way.
The game’s biggest draw is the fact that it is based on true events. The developers changed the names of some places and people but all the stories you get to experience – some funny, some sad, others dramatic, or scary – really happened to someone. [12/2020, p.54]
Welcome to Elk is an important game in that it makes the unimportant worthy of remembering, giving them the same gravitas any celebrity automatically receives. We tell the bad stories because we’re left holding baggage of an unknown weight, but we need to tell the good stories as well — to shine a light against the otherwise dark moments that seemingly act as traumatic bookmarks in life.
Short on challenge but full of moments that can make you laugh or cry, Welcome to Elk is an intense and memorable narrative experience about a group of people dealing with the hardships of life.
This is an absolutely incredible game, and easily my favorite of this year! It's an adventure game and a point-and-click hybrid with surreal elements, but what makes it stand-out is the uniqueness of how it tells its stories and the authenticity of its world and its characters. The ending had me ///// /// sobbing ///// //
To everyone who loves story adventures: you just have to play this game! This indie game won´t come with great new gameplay machanics, but with a lot of geat stories you can explore. This game will make you sad, melancholic but somehow happy. You can learn a lot of this game for your life. Maybe the 12,50 € for 4 hours will make someone not realy happy, but it is worth it and you can support a new team of developers and hope for some new games in this genre.
SummaryWelcome to Elk is a biographical adventure set on an island like no other, where every character you encounter has a story to tell. From the weird and wonderful to the dark and desperate, all the tales told on Elk are based on true stories of life on the road less traveled.