Immortality preview – A mystery in the reels

A film star has gone missing. The truth behind her sudden disappearance lies in the footage, waiting to be discovered. From Telling Lies director Sam Barlow comes another stunning narratively-driven mystery video game called Immortality. I had the pleasure of previewing this intriguing title, and now that I understand a little more about it, I can’t wait for its late July release.

Immortality is a game about a fictitious film star by the name of Marissa Marcel who starred in three movies. However, those three movies were never released and now Marcel has disappeared. The task you have as the player is to sift through footage from all three films, as well as footage from behind the scenes and press interviews, to figure out what has happened to her. To start off, you are presented with a collection of clips from the films, interviews, and elsewhere, and you choose one of these clips to start your digging. The first clip I chose to dive into was a talk show interview of our missing actress, kind of like Late Night with Jimmy Fallon or the Graham Norton Show. In this clip, Marcel talks about a film that production has just wrapped on but then also proceeds to reveal an upcoming film project she had just started work on.

Like any good detective, you need to sift through the footage to find any patterns, any clues, any… thing, really, that could help point you in the right direction. If you find any objects, faces, or anything else of interest, you can pause the video and click on it. Doing so takes you to another clip from a film or an interview or wherever, and you continue along in your search. You are also able to enter into a photo mode where you can capture stills from each video to analyze a little more closely. All stills you take can be reviewed at any time by switching to the pictures menu with a simple button press, and then you can quickly and easily switch back to the video clips with the same button.

This preview started off a little interesting for me as it didn’t load up in English when I first started it, so I’m pretty sure I missed some sort of plot detail or instruction at the beginning, but it thankfully gave me the option to switch to English shortly after. I had read up a little on Immortality before starting the preview, so I already had a small idea of what I was walking into, but I was still a little confused as I was going through the videos. For a while I would just watch a clip and then click on people’s faces, automatically being directed to the next clip without getting any direction or feedback. I am not entirely sure how you determine how you’re doing, if you’re progressing or anything, because there’s no indication that anything crucial was found. There’s no log book or anything keeping track of any clues or points of interest that I clicked on. However, this was a short preview, and I do feel like if I had been able to spend more time in the game I would surely have started to see things.

Either way, Immortality presents a very interesting story – I always love a good mystery – and the clips from the films, the interviews, and the behind the scenes, presented a unique perspective and ended up making for a very interesting game experience. The three films are all based in very different timeframes, showing the diversity and skill level of Marissa Marcel’s acting talent. You also get to see her engaging with other people while on set, during script reads, and so much more.

I really wish I had been able to see more of Immortality. I am very curious to see more of the clips and to take a deeper look into Marissa Marcel, not only in her roles she played, but also just as a person in her interactions with others. I somewhat hope that her disappearance will be something similar to the disappearance of Harriet Vanger in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009). But we will just have to wait and see when Immortality releases for Xbox Series X|S and PC next month. If you want to see more about this game, make sure to check back again for our full review.

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