Game profile
Before Your Eyes
On a boat to the afterlife, a soul relives its own life memories, controlled solely by the player's real blinking via webcam. This short, deeply emotional experience sensitively tells a story of childhood, loss and letting go.
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What kind of game this is
At its core this is Adventure, set in the present day. Visually it is deliberately stylised rather than photorealistic, and the overall tone stays somewhere between light and heavy. The structure is guided rather than open, so you are moved along instead of dropped into a map. It is built around short sessions, which makes it easy to pick up for half an hour.
Difficulty stays forgiving, so progress rarely depends on your reflexes. The narrative carries the whole thing, and the mechanics serve it. It is a single player experience from start to finish. It is available broadly, on 4 platforms. It sits in the budget bracket.
What stands out
- Blink controlled gameplay
- Deeply emotional
- Short, dense experience
This fits you if
- you want to live through a story, not just play a system
- you usually have thirty to sixty minutes and want that to be enough
- the writing matters more to you than the mechanics
- you want zero frustration and no difficulty wall
- you play alone and want a complete experience without other people
- you are watching your budget
Look elsewhere if
- you need real difficulty to stay interested
- you skip cutscenes and want to get to the gameplay
- you want something that lasts, this is over after 2 hours
- you specifically want an open world to roam
How long is Before Your Eyes?
About 2 hours in total. That is roughly 1 evening(s), so you can realistically finish it this week.
How the rating ranks
Critics settled on 86 out of 100, which puts it above 66 percent of the 1276 games here and at rank 377 overall. That is mid-table for this database. Not a standout at the top, but solidly rated.
For comparison, Adventure averages 83 points across the database, so this one sits 3 points above its own genre. The figure rests on 87 collected ratings.
Released in 2021, so it has 5 years behind it. Usually cheap by now and the rough edges are long fixed.
The facts
- Release year
- 2021
- Genres
- Adventure
- Playtime
- approx. 2 hrs.
- Difficulty
- Relaxed, forgiving
- Story weight
- Carries the whole game
- Play with
- Solo
- Setting
- Present day
- Visual style
- Stylised
- Price bracket
- Budget
- Platforms
- PC, PlayStation, Switch, Mobile
- Critic rating
- 86 / 100
Direct comparison
| Genres | Release year | Playtime | Critic rating | Price bracket |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Before Your Eyes | 2021 | approx. 2 hrs. | 86 | Budget |
| What Remains of Edith Finch | 2017 | approx. 3 hrs. | 87 | Budget |
| Old Man's Journey | 2017 | approx. 3 hrs. | 79 | Budget |
| Mixtape | 2026 | approx. 4 hrs. | 74 | Budget |
If you liked this, try these
- 87/100 What Remains of Edith Finch Shared: Adventure, Present day, longer, rated higher
- 79/100 Old Man's Journey Shared: Adventure, Present day, longer
- 74/100 Mixtape Shared: Adventure, Present day, longer
- 74/100 Gone Home Shared: Adventure, Present day, longer
- 79/100 Firewatch Shared: Adventure, Present day, longer
- 79/100 Beacon Pines Shared: Adventure, Present day, longer