In Season: A letter to the future, you play as a young woman from a remote village exploring the world by bicycle for the first time, gathering memories before a cataclysm takes it all away. Your journey takes you to a strange valley where the seeds of the next season have been planted. You meet the last inhabitants the day before their evacuation. In this last moment, you try to reconstruct the mysteries of the valley. Each conversation, each landscape, brings you closer to understanding: what is this season and why is it ending?
Why the story?
Most of the themes of “Season: A letter to the future” are the expression of the anxieties of our time. We are heading towards a future that we know will be worse than the present. As this becomes more certain, there is an associated thought that seems even darker: those awful years are also the good times. The story exists to give a kind of poetic expression (barely mastered poetic meaning, the subconscious has the wheel) to these thoughts and feelings, to defamiliarize them, tear them apart and reconstitute them in an imaginary world. There is also another major motif in the story: the five senses.
The senses or how things feel
Gambling often draws attention to your senses. The screen goes black several times when the character closes their eyes to listen more closely to the sounds. The taste, feel, or smell of things is often described as you explore. This theme has found powerful expression in many features only available on PlayStation 5. What’s it like to ride a bike? Adaptive triggers allow us to vary resistance based on speed or road gradient, so going uphill feels like going uphill. The haptic feedback also changes when riding on different types of terrain. When recording in-game audio, you hear the sound but also feel its shape in the vibration of the DualSense controller.
Season also uses Tempest 3D AudioTech to add a deeper level of detail to the spatial dimensions of sound. The world is full of catchy sounds that demand this close inspection. The music doesn’t just exist in the score, but is part of the world, self-playing musical instruments, radio tunes, unusual birdsong, the song of the wind through the bamboo. These are rich details but given the thematic importance the game places on our senses, they take on an extra layer of meaning.
Interact with the world and its inhabitants
You will meet many diverse people as you adventure through the world of Season. When you meet them, each prepares for the changing season in their own way. Join them in their final moments in their home and record their stories.
Kochi, a young boy, takes you on a bike ride through a valley the day before it flooded. Get to know the house he grew up in as he prepares for his final farewell.
Maytora, a foreign artist, documents the history of the valley through her sculptures. You are the only witness to his last play.
Chevalet is the last monk in the Tieng Valley. Abandoned by his teachers and friends, Easel awaits the change of seasons in seclusion, with nothing to pray for until you arrive.
You guide them through moments of quiet crisis. In their lives, the change to come in the world is not abstract, it is immediate. They try to navigate, to survive, to find a way to live. You help them. You remember them. In your journal, take them with you.
- A breathtaking bike road trip: Cycle through breathtaking landscapes. Slow down and take in Vista’s incredible scenery after a memorable view.
- Explore a mysterious world: Encounter a diverse cast of characters along your way, who will change the course of your story. The land of Tieng Valley is open to you to explore, investigate, and learn about the past and future of this place.
- Document, photograph and record: Collect memories, make recordings and uncover the secrets of this season before it ends. Your journal is the key to understanding this world.
- Nice soundtrack: Listen to the haunting score as you travel, a perfect accompaniment for your trip.
- Important choices: Pay attention to your surroundings as you experience the story and solve the season’s ending. Choose the questions you ask the characters carefully, as these choices will impact your relationships and your understanding of the world. Remember that what you collect is what will be saved for the next season.
The gameplay of Season: A letter to the future focuses on exploring, recording, meeting other people, and discovering the strange world around you. Cycle through breathtaking landscapes. At any time, you can get off your bike and equip a check-in tool from your bag. Each captures a different element; sounds and music, art and architecture, voices of strangers, vanishing religious practices and traces of Seasons long past. Your tools help you examine the world more closely until you are able to grasp the underlying culture, history, and ecology. Season: A Letter to the Future will be available digitally on PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4 January 31. You can pre-order now or add to your wishlist!
