I've just finished Dreamfall Chapters, which brings my first playthrough of the entire Longest Journey-Dreamfall saga to a close. I still stand by the opinion that this is THE greatest story ever put to games, and I mean that as objectively as possible. It's deep, emotional, and complex, but easy to follow, and it maintains a balance between lore exposition and mystery to the very end. I have written a bit about the first two games; The Longest Journey (here), and Dreamfall (here) before, and as with them I won't really explain the story in great detail. Essentially it seamlessly weaves a story across twin worlds, a dystopian cyberpunk future earth, and a parallel magical fantasy world (along with some metaphysical realms). This series is something to experience as intended (playing da games), it is far more impactful this way, and even little lore lookups can spoil great moments.
Apprehensions and Adventure Games
I was more apprehensive about this entry that the previous two games for a few reasons, mostly centred around the time period of it's release (2014-2018 over multiple 'chapters'). I don't play a lot of games from the 2010s, not to say they are all bad, but it seems to be a tipping point for a lot of negatives in gaming as it became bigger than all other entertainment mediums. You start to see less games focused solely on fun, or willing to take risks by making interesting/weird/freak games. Instead you get more mass appeal 'tent-pole' games, more homogeny, and more simplification, as financial backers of game studios enforce 'safe' choices to ensure they make their money back. The mid 2010s is also a period of MCU domination in the film world and general culture at large, which permeated that 'erm... hes right behind me isnt he?' style of ham-fisted 'humour' writing into everything, including games. The 2010s is also the advent of micro-transactions, which clearly impact game development in the sense that devs are more likely to withold great content for use in a paid DLC or season pass (every game ever), OR deliberately make their gameplay more frustrating and tedious to encourage players to give up and buy game currency (GTA Online, other MMOs). Dreamfall Chapters is also a Unity engine game. Unity is a great and accessible engine that a lot of fantastic games use, and which opened games development up to a lot of people. It is also known for a barrage of poorly optimized cash-grab asset-flip games, that is only getting worse now with generative AI.
To counter the above (provide some balance even), the 2010s also birthed an organic influx of indie games developers, and numerous successful crowd-funded game projects from established names who no longer had their 90s-00s funding. This is probably due to a mix of things like development becoming more accessible (through Unity and other game engines), and as a natural reaction to the growing anti-consumer and anti-creative choices that large studios were making. People are happy to pay for/fund the unique and fun game experiences that they actually want, and were given the means to do so on a large scale for the first time. Why do I hate that MCU style humour that was so prevalent? In the past I would have said it's cringey, but that's too easy of a jab, and not a nice way to live. I think more accurately I find that writing style to be a bit hack/overdone, and just not something I am interested in. But even in the peak examples of this style it doesn't engulf all dialogue, and there is room for emotional storytelling. Above all else, the sentiment I kept seeing about this game from it's fanbase was "it is a beautiful and emotional send off to this story, it's characters, and it's world", which was enough for me. Anyway, this whole tangent comes from one of the trailers I watched for Dreamfall Chapters, and some of it's early game dialogue. There was a "yep, thats me, I bet youre wondering how I got here" moment that felt incongruent with the writing of the previous games. Don't judge a book (game) by it's cover (marketing style that may have been mandated by cultural and economic changes).
There was a problem I saw mentioned a few times when reading about the second game in the series 'Dreamfall', that adventure games didn't/don't really exist anymore. Point-and-click adventures mostly died out with the end of the 90s, I guess as graphics improved overall there was more of a push economically and creatively to make graphically impressive 3D games. Many games of the early 00s tell great stories (Half-Life, Red Faction) without compromising on graphics. Point-and-clicks from the like of Sierra and Lucasarts felt dated, people weren't willing to try them out because of their graphical look. Adventure games declined and were mostly absent when Dreamfall released, making it a 'big risk'. This also contributed to the somewhat abrupt multi-threaded cliffhanger ending of Dreamfall, the creative team were unable to secure funding to finish their story.
Actually talking about Dreamfall Chapters
In the time between Dreamfall and Dreamfall Chapters (2007-2014), adventure games were mostly just remakes of classics, or the stuff Telltale was putting out. The latter seems to have influenced the choice-based gameplay of Dreamfall Chapters. This doesn't lead to alternate endings (just who is present at the end), there is a defining story that must be followed, but it does lead to minor relationship changes, and at times character deaths. There was a real emotional impact in making a careless mistake that lead to the arrest of a resistance member. It was also a strange feeling to be happy about a decision I made coincidentally saving the characters I was most endeared to. I was getting the impression that the choices didn't really make a difference, but these little changes did have a real effect on me. It was very satisfying to bring this story to it's conclusion 'my way', while having to live with the mistakes I made along the way.
The way they are able to expand the stakes and the lore of this series with each entry is phenomenal. I continue to adore the music of this series too. The world design has become a bit larger and more modern in Chapters, with less smaller instances to each map allowing you to freely explore around. I enjoy that kind of contained freedom in games, as often a fully open world can leave you with a lot of empty space and nothing to do (thinking of a no mans sky review along the lines of "a billion different planets doesn't mean a billion different things to do"). It also allows the creative team to hone in and make a more believable and detailed space. I wouldn't necessarily recommend Dreamfall Chapters as a stand alone game to someone though, it is best played after The Longest Journey and Dreamfall. This familiarises and endears you with the world and it's characters, there were a few very brief cameo characters that are incomprehensible without context. It also makes the emotional moments far more powerful, seeing some character's journeys come to an end.
There are also a thousand little touches throughout the game, clearly for series fans. Beyond seeing old characters and familiar places, there were many places that reused art from the previous titles. Like many of the murals in the enclave were rescaled from The Longest Journey (seeing the white dragon genuinely gave me goosebumps of comfort). The mural in Kian's room is the isometric background of the Enclave from TLJ, other backgrounds were used as backdrops throughout the game too (the plains and mountains north of Marcuria). All of this stuff really made me understand the fanbase sentiment of "it's an emotional send off" more. There were also little thematic touches that were well thought out, like all the 'House of All Worlds' scenes taking place in interludes and the epilogue (the in-between).
As for negatives of Dreamfall Chapters, most of it was the usual adventure game obstuseness. I often have to sit with a walkthrough open for when I get frustrated in these games (neurodivergent), like "oh obviously the thing to solve this puzzle is on the other side of town", or the dreaded rubber-ducky puzzle from TLJ. Nothing wrong with using a tool to do something you enjoy. I also was expecting there to be more time spent with the character Saga, as she is centrally placed on a lot of the box art. More time could have built up her character more, or better explored the lore around her home, but I still liked her and I also don't mind them not answering every question about the world. Leaving some mystery allows you to think about it for days, weeks, years after (what I am doing now). The fanbase also generally seems quite mature, like a holdover from when it was created (late 90s with TLJ's release), so you can see people's opinions and explanations online without a flame war, lmao.
What now, Expanded universe, and Pondering Funcom
I haven't had this strong of a connection to a story since maybe KOTOR 2 or Fallout New Vegas. While FNV is a very human story, Kotor 2 had a lot more similarity to this series with it's deep themes and space/fantasy setting. Despite a lot of my all time favourite games having 'Star Wars' in the title, I don't actually like that franchise. I liked it when I was a kid, but unfortunately I grew up and now find it very shallow and dull. I think the reason there are so many great games set in the franchise though, is that it is easy to understand and get into, has large scale recognition, the and potential for interesting stories. The expanded universe and games just do a much better job with this. Kotor 1 is one of the best and most solid RPG stories ever made. Kotor 2 is better, deeper, darker, and more 'grey' in classic Obsidian fashion. Finishing it put me on to any old republic era comics that I could find, and I really enjoyed them. Unfortunately the TLJ-Dreamfall saga doesn't really have expanded media.
There was a 'Tome of the Balance' companion book given to a level of kickstarter backers of Dreamfall Chapters, but it is not widely available (of course). From what I have read it just explains some details further, with some behind the scenes info. There are some summaries online, these tumblr posts here and a follow up here, and apparently a torrent of the Russian language PDF version floating around. The Tome does not really expand on the world as much as it just provides further detail to what has already been seen. Another project, that is on indefinite hiatus, is a new game called 'The Longest Journey Home'. This was (is?) intended to be an inbetween-quel or 1.5 entry to the series, taking place between TLJ and Dreamfall and focusing on April's life/journey home after the sudden climax of the first game. This was also planned to be made in a classic point-and-click static isometric background adventure style, but release this decade. I really would love to see that story, of how April went from naive and stumbling through saving the world, to the hardened (and maybe broken) resistance leader of Dreamfall. This was a push by the original writer of all three games, Ragnar Tørnquist, who created Red Thread games in order to release Dreamfall Chapters. The IP still belongs to the original studio he worked with, Funcom (a name you may recognize).
That's the funny story with Funcom though, they love to make the best game you've ever played, or the best game mechanics you have ever encountered, then immediately abandon it or make inexplicable decisions that kill it's massive potential. And potential is the thing that best desribes their games, TLJ-Dreamfall is a story that rivals like LOTR and Blade Runner, without being totally derivative of them. Their other games like Conan Exiles and Anarchy Online have some of the most unique and interesting gameplay elements I've ever seen. The world design, building system, and melee combat of Exiles is unmatched (when it works). Anarchy has intense depth to it's systems and it's fast travel requires 'hacking' where you become like a bit of data and have to platform through a virtual space to reach outlet points. The Secret World, a secret society, horror fiction, dark urban fantasy MMO. All of these abandoned and their playerbases left to rot (but they'll still collect your cash). There were plans to create a TLJ-Dreamfall saga MMO at some point, which like can you imagine a dual worlds medieval fantasy and cyberpunk dystopian online game like that? Maybe you'd have to class into being a shifter and walk between worlds (star wars galaxies jedi style), maybe some players would dedicated their character to only one side of the game? (city of heroes/villans). Again, it's just potential, potential, potential, but it never comes to fruition. Anyway, it will be interesting to see when they drop support for their new Dune game (looks like they already started layoffs after a successful launch).
Thanks for reading