To write about Immortality in a way that would do it justice, I would need to likely fill every page of this newspaper and then some. Immortality –a Half Mermaid Productions’ video game from 2022– is unlike any video game I have ever played. However, it is not the first of its kind. The lead developer, Sam Barlow, has been making live action, interactable mystery games since 2015’s Her Story and the usage of full motion video techniques have been used in gaming since the 1980s. While it isn’t the first to utilize these skills, it is breaking ground in the techniques implemented.
Immortality centers around a key question: “What happened to Marissa Marcel?” As a former model and actress who has starred in 3 movies, Ambrosio, Minsky, and Two of Everything, none of Marcel’s films were ever released and she vanished without a trace. The player is tasked with pouring over hours of unedited film, behind the scenes shots, and promotional footage related to these three films. What makes the game genius, however, is the way the mechanics of the game are presented. Starting with one piece of footage, the player can click on certain images. They can then match cut to another piece of footage. For example, clicking on Marcel’s face will take you to another clip with her face in it. On top of this, the player manually has to pause, rewind, and fast forward in every clip. In this game, this is explained as the player using an analog editing machine, giving the game a deeply tactile feel as the controller vibrates with each input.
By the time you begin to feel used to the controls, you are fully immersed in the game. It begins to feel less like a game and more like you are hunched over a table, pouring through hours upon hours of film. There is something deeply uncanny about how well made this game is. The film sets, the behind the scenes footage, the banter after scenes are finished; everything feels exactly like unedited footage. There were several moments when I forgot I was playing a video game. I found myself lingering on paused frames and searching for new angles to explore the films and to find new segments. I started clicking on people’s faces simply because I was compelled to see where else they would turn up in the game. Each new clip brought with it a wave of excitement that slowly would turn into a growing unease as more of the story was brought to light.
Things don’t add up in Immortality and they begin to bother you. Game achievements pop up with cryptic messages, you start to notice and even interact with ghostly images that appear in the film. There are plenty of purposeful inconsistencies too, such as there being over a 20-year gap between Minsky and Two of Everything. This poses the question: Does Marissa ever seem to get older? What’s that ominous music that plays over certain segments of the footage? What happened that made all three of these films lost? Gnawing questions like that tend to pop up constantly with each new clip. What astounds me about this game is that it goes on to answer pretty much every question you could think to ask—and more—as long as you engage with it.
This demand for the player to engage with the game is what made me fall in love with the whole thing. Film, which is what this game is at its core, demands spectatorship above all else. However, this game has you look at raw film, unedited, the kind of footage not meant to be viewed by anyone but an editor. Then it distorts the barrier of film by having you actively engage and at many points directly change that raw film. The way this game encourages an almost obsessive interrogation of itself allows it to fill its many hours of gameplay with deeply theoretical ideas. This game lends itself to analysis on practically all aspects. It is a look into the role of women on film and the way they are often horribly mistreated and misrepresented. It is practically a dissertation on film and its ability to document life and reveal subjectivity in our reality. It deals with the inherent desire to create art and the frustrations that arise from being unsatisfied with one’s accomplishments.
I have not even scratched the surface of Immortality; I have not even touched on some of the most pivotal parts of the game. This is because it truly is a game that needs to be experienced with no real background beyond what I’ve said here. Yes, it is a game that can be beaten in about 4 hours. However, what separates Immortality from not only most video games but also from most works of art, period, is the way that the game transcends the confines of its medium and becomes something greater than itself. Immortality is an abstracted microcosm of humanity and its relationship with art. Throughout the game you almost feel as if your own mind has been shattered across the many segments of film, and over the several hours you play it, the game gives you a chance to try and make your perception whole again.