Lake [Xbox]

Developed by Gamious, Lake is a narrative-based game that takes place in September of 1986, and sees you in the role of Meredith Weiss, who is back in her childhood home after 22 years. House-sitting while her parents are on holiday, Meredith takes on a temporary role as a postie in her father’s absence. It’s a very relaxing experience, with each workday leading you to deliver a variety of parcels and letters to the residents of Providence Oaks, familiarising yourself with the roads and making friends with some of the people you’ll meet.

As you do your rounds, many of the households won’t answer the doorbell - so you’ll just plop their packages on their doorstep and continue on your way, but for those that do answer, you’ll have some dialogue choices that can impact your relationships. I inadvertently pissed off Mildred, the elderly cat-lady, by assuming her parcel - shaped like a stuffed teddy-bear - was a stuffed teddy-bear, leading her to call me a “nosy-posy”.

Visually, it’s quite mixed - with a beautiful, picturesque setting, and a charming art style, however there are frequent texture popping issues, as well as other graphical glitches such as juddering shadows, and characters mouths freezing mid-speech, before rapidly catching up, leaving odd clipping fragments shown through their lips. Driving around in your mail-van is quite slow, especially if you’re used to the faster vehicles of typical games, and there’s not a lot of life out and about in the world. But don’t worry if you crash into anyone, they don’t seem to mind - and driving into the lake will just clip you through the terrain and into a loading screen, before booting you back to the Post Office. The voice acting is similarly mixed, with it sometimes feeling quite awkward, whilst other times feeling well-done and genuine. There’s also a limited soundtrack available via your van’s radio, and this is fairly pleasant to listen to as you drive around.

The interactions you’ll have with some of the characters is the main focus of Lake, with friendships growing and the potential for love blossoming. Ultimately, the two-weeks you spend in your hometown, away from the big-city life you’ve grown accustomed to, is an eye-opener - and whether it makes you long for your city-apartment or want to stay in Oregon is up to you, and the choices you make along the way.

Overall, it’s a game ideally suited for someone that’s looking for something chilled out to spend their time with. It’s not an exciting game by any means, but the story is interesting and will pull you in if you let it. Priced at £15.99 on Xbox, this can feel like a bit of a steep price for a game you might be taking a risk on, particularly if you’re less inclined to go for games like this - however, it is included within Xbox Game Pass subscription, so I’d at least recommend you to check it out while it’s on there.

In the end, we decided to give Lake the Collecting Asylum rating of 7/10.

Are you interested in Lake? What do you think of it?
Let us know in the comments below!

- V x

Thank you to Gamious for the Lake Xbox review code!