What Remains of Edith Finch

The story follows the seventeen-year-old Edith Finch, the last surviving member of her family, as she returns to her ancestral home for the first time in seven years. Reexploring the house, she uncovers her family's mysterious past and learns about the series of deaths that eventually caused the complete collapse of her family structure. The game is presented as an interconnected anthology and, utilizing unique mediums from varying perspectives, the story is told through a series of vignettes; however, the player is made to doubt the authenticity of each story being told.


What Remains of Edith Finch received critical acclaim, receiving praise for its immersive storytelling, characters, and presentation; and is considered an example of video games as an art form. Among other awards and nominations, it won the British Academy Games Award for Best Game 2017 and the Best Narrative category at both The Game Awards 2017 and the 2018 Game Developers Choice Awards.

Story[edit]

The player character takes a ferry to Orcas Island, Washington carrying the journal of Edith Finch. The journal details Edith's experience returning to her ancestral home on the island for the first time in seven years. As a 17-year-old, Edith writes that she is the last surviving member of her family. The player then takes the perspective of Edith as she reexplores the house and discovers the alleged circumstances of each relative's death, the authenticity of which is confused due to the unique mediums and perspectives of each source.


Edith explains that her family is believed to be cursed because of the untimely deaths they frequently experience. In 1937, in an effort to escape the curse after the death of his wife Ingeborg and newborn son Johann, Edith's great-great-grandfather Odin Finch emigrates from Norway to the United States. Alongside his daughter Edith (Edith Sr., or 'Edie'), her husband Sven (né Hoffstad), and their newborn daughter Molly, he ferries his family house with them. However, waves off the shore of Orcas Island capsize the house and Odin drowns. The remaining family builds a new home and accompanying graveyard nearby. Here, Edie gives birth to Barbara, Calvin and Sam, and Walter.


For a while, Edie believes they have left the curse behind, but unusual tragedies begin to befall her family. At 10 years old, Molly dies after ingesting fluoridated toothpaste and holly berries; at 16, Barbara is murdered during a home invasion or implied domestic dispute; at 11, Calvin falls to his death after swinging off the edge of a cliff; at 49, Edie's husband Sven dies during a construction accident at the house; and, at 53, after having spent 30 years living as a recluse in a bunker beneath the house and traumatized at witnessing Barbara's death, Walter is hit by a train after stepping outside for the first time since. Edie memorializes each death by turning their respective bedrooms into shrines.


Sam marries a woman named Kay Carlyle, and they have three children: Dawn, Gus, and Gregory. However, Dawn is the only one to live to adulthood. At 22 months, Gregory drowns in the bathtub after being left unattended by his mother; and, at 13, Gus is crushed by a totem pole during a storm. Sam and Kay get a divorce and, at 33, whilst on a hunting trip with Dawn, Sam falls to his death after being bucked from a cliff by a deer.


Traumatized, Dawn moves to Kolkata, India, marries Sanjay Kumar, and they have three children: Lewis, Milton, and Edith (Jr.). In 2002, Sanjay dies in an earthquake and Dawn returns with her children to the Finch home. At 11 years old, Milton inexplicably disappears,^[a] and Dawn becomes paranoid. She seals off the memorialized bedrooms of the deceased and forbids her children from learning about their family history in an effort to save them from a similar fate.


In 2010, after struggling with substance abuse and mental illness, Lewis dies by suicide at the age of 21. Now desperate, Dawn decides they must all leave the house. Edie, however, refuses to go, and, after a heated argument, Dawn and Edith flee the house without her, leaving most of their possessions behind. The next day, Edie is found dead at the age of 93 after consuming alcohol alongside her prescription medication.


Seven years later, Dawn succumbs to an undisclosed illness, and 17-year-old Edith inherits the property. Returning to the house, Edith discovers for herself the stories of her family's unique history, documenting her own thoughts and experiences in her journal. Edith reveals that she is pregnant and that the journal is intended for her unborn child in case she should die before she is able to tell them the stories herself.


In the final scene, the player character is revealed to be Edith's son Christopher, and that Edith has died during childbirth in 2017. In an unspecified time in the future, Christopher places flowers on his mother's grave.