I m delighted to say that Virginia [official site] was not at all about what I thought it would be, what it seemed to be. Pretty early on, its narrative took a surprising sideways step, a sudden and yet fluid motion that made it feel fresh, exciting and unpredictable. It was the first of a series of such steps the game would take, crabbing its way into increasingly unusual territory until, at the end of its two hour story, I wasn t quite sure where either of us were left standing. Many of its surprises were pleasant, but others were perplexing.
Ostensibly, Virginia is about two women working for the FBI in the early 1990s, tasked to find a boy who has gone missing in the titular state. However, this missing person case isn t quite what it seems. Nor is your own objective. Nor even is your character or, it seems, much of what s going on around you. By its conclusion, I wasn t entirely sure what Virginia was about and I m not sure how much of this I could attribute to imperfect storytelling, to elements of very deliberate obfuscation or to my own ignorance. Virginia is strange and fascinating. It definitely isn t for everyone, but it certainly is remarkable.