Stories Untold (video game)

Lore & Background

Stories Untold consists of four episodes, each an adventure and horror game. The first episode is a remastered version of The House Abandon, a shorter free-to-play adventure released in August 2016. The story takes place in England, 1986. The first three episodes are ostensibly standalone: in the first, the player has no name or specified gender; in the second, the character is referred to as 'Mr. Aition'; in the third, 'James'. The concluding fourth episode reveals that all episodes are connected in a single story revolving around one player character, James Aition. Most of the game involves interacting with fictional computers, either from a single viewpoint or with the ability to switch between two viewpoints; the third and fourth episodes also include small segments of first-person exploration.

Reader's Guide

The game's significance lies in its layered narrative structure, where each episode initially appears independent but is revealed to be part of a unified story about guilt and trauma. The first episode, The House Abandon, uses a text-based adventure within the game to blur the line between the in-game computer and the player's reality, as actions in the text adventure are mirrored in the 'real-life' environment. The second episode, The Lab Conduct, involves experiments on an artifact that connects the player to an alien entity through another text adventure. The third episode, The Station Process, places the player in an arctic monitoring station with puzzles using a radio and microfilm reader, culminating in a surreal sequence where the station is connected to a vine stretching into the sky. The final episode, The Last Session, reveals that James Aition was in a car crash with his sister Jennifer, who died, and that his memories were merged with fantasy during therapy sessions with Dr. Alexander. The game's legacy is its innovative use of multiple game genres to tell a cohesive horror story, with the 1980s technology theme serving as both aesthetic and narrative device.

Did You Know?

• The game was released on macOS and Windows on 27 February 2017, then on Nintendo Switch in January 2020, and on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in October 2020.
• The player character in the second episode is referred to as 'Mr. Aition', and in the third as 'James', with the fourth revealing the unified character James Aition.
• In the first episode, actions inside the text adventure are mirrored in the 'real-life' environment, such as sounds from the game being heard around the house.