What Remains of Edith Finch: Plot, Length, Reviews, and More

There are games you play, and then there are games you inhabit and then can’t quite shake. *What Remains of Edith Finch* is the latter—a two-and-a-half-hour walk through a family home that somehow contains seventeen funerals, one house key, and a question about what really happened to a 13-year-old girl. This guide walks through the plot, the length, the quality, the hallucination subplot, and whether it’s something you’d let a kid play.

Metacritic Score: 89 ·
Average Playtime: 2–3 hours ·
Release Year: 2017 ·
Developer: Giant Sparrow ·
Platforms: PC, PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, iOS

Nine key specs, one pattern: this is a short, highly rated narrative experience with a deliberate lack of gameplay variety.

What is What Remains of Edith Finch really about?

The Finch family curse

• Edith Finch returns to the family mansion after her mother’s death
• She discovers the stories of her ancestors’ deaths, each crafted as a unique gameplay sequence

Every Finch, it seems, dies young. The family lore—half-believed, half-feared—whispers that a curse has followed the Finches since their first arrival in Washington state. Edith, seventeen years old and seven years away from that house, enters it as the last living Finch carrying that weight.

A tour of the family home

• The house itself is a character—each bedroom preserved as a monument to its former occupant
• Players explore rooms, read diaries, and trigger memories that play out as vignettes

Walking through the Finch house is less like exploring a building and more like reading an archaeological dig of grief. Every room has been sealed, every object arranged, as if the family expected someone to come back and decode it all.

Playable vignettes

• Each story is a first-person interactive sequence with a distinct gameplay mechanic (Giant Sparrow (official site))
• One vignette has you controlling a fish; another, a swing set; another, a photography studio

The vignettes range from wholesome (feeding an owl a mouse, only the mouse is you) to devastating (Lewis Finch’s fantasy-reality breakdown). They’re what make *Edith Finch* impossible to spoil—you have to play the sequences to feel them.

Bottom line: *What Remains of Edith Finch* is a playable collection of short stories about a family where everyone dies young. Players who love literary, emotional narratives: this is your game. Players who want tight action mechanics: this probably isn’t.

The pattern: every death in the Finch family is framed as both inevitable and ambiguous, forcing players to sit with the discomfort of not knowing which deaths are curse and which are coincidence.

How long of a game is Edith Finch?

Average completion time

• Most players finish the main story in 2 to 3 hours (HowLongToBeat (player-reported average))
• No side quests, no branching paths—a linear experience from start to finish

At an average of 2.5 hours, *Edith Finch* is roughly the length of a double feature. That brevity is intentional: Giant Sparrow designed each vignette to hit its emotional peak and move on before the player gets comfortable.

Main story vs. exploration

• You can take your time reading letters and inspecting objects, but the game doesn’t punish speedrunners (GameFAQs (walkthrough notes ease of play))
• Completionist runs add about 30 minutes for missed collectibles

The implication: if you have one evening and want to experience a complete, self-contained story, this is among the most efficient narrative games on the market.

What Remains of Edith Finch, good or bad?

Critical reception

• Metacritic score of 89 across all platforms
• Won the 2018 BAFTA Games Award for Best Game
• Won Best Narrative at The Game Awards 2017 (The Game Awards (official nominees))

Reviewers were nearly unanimous: the storytelling is extraordinary, the vignette design is inventive, and the emotional impact is rare in any medium. The only recurring critique was gameplay depth—some reviewers on GameTyrant (review page) called it “a short experience” that leaves you wanting more, not necessarily in a good way.

Player reviews

• Steam rating is “Overwhelmingly Positive” with over 50,000 reviews
• Common praise: emotional depth, voice acting, and the Lewis Finch sequence
• Common criticism: too short, minimal interactivity

Pros and cons

Bottom line: *Edith Finch* is overwhelmingly good at what it sets out to do—tell an emotionally devastating story through interactive vignettes. Players who value narrative: buy it with zero hesitation. Players who value gameplay length or mechanical depth: wait for a sale, or skip it.

The takeaway: the game succeeds brilliantly within its own constraints, making the verdict depend entirely on what a player values in interactive entertainment.

Was Molly Finch hallucinating?

Molly’s story in the game

• Molly Finch, age 13, died in 1948 after eating poisonous berries and then hallucinating a sequence of transformations
• The player experiences: eating berries, then becoming a cat, then an owl, then a shark, then a sea creature

Molly’s chapter is the game’s first vignette, and it sets the tonal template: reality is slippery, and the game doesn’t tell you which layer you’re in. She eats holly berries and mushrooms, gets sick, and the sequence spirals into a fever-dream where she becomes different animals hunting and eating prey.

Interpretations of her experience

• Giant Sparrow confirmed the ambiguity: is it a literal hallucination from food poisoning, a supernatural experience, or a metaphor for her suppressed desires?
• Most players interpret it as a hallucination from the berries and mushrooms she ate—supported by the diary entries describing her hunger and illness

The pattern across the game is that every vignette has a “rational” explanation (Molly ate poison, Lewis was on antipsychotics, Gregory had a bath accident) and a “supernatural” one (the curse killed them). The game never chooses. That’s the point.

The implication: the game’s refusal to resolve this ambiguity reinforces its central theme—the Finch family story is whatever you need it to be to make sense of the tragedy.

Is Edith Finch appropriate for kids?

Age rating

• ESRB rating: M (Mature 17+) for blood, drug reference, sexual themes, use of alcohol, violence (ESRB (rating database))
• PEGI rating: 16
• Common Sense Media (parenting reviews) recommends age 15+

This is not a kid’s game. The M rating covers: a child’s death by drowning in a bathtub, a suicide by guillotine, a teenage girl eating hallucinogenic berries and then dreaming of eating animals alive, and pervasive themes of fatalism and grief.

Content warnings

• Depictions of death by drowning, guillotine, self-inflicted injury, and poisoning
• Drug references: Lewis Finch uses antipsychotic medication; Molly eats toxic berries
• Mild alcohol use: characters drink wine at dinner scenes

Why this matters: a parent buying this for a 12-year-old based on its cartoony cover art will have a difficult conversation when the third vignette involves a guillotine. The game is for mature teenagers and adults who can handle ambiguous, emotionally heavy storytelling.

Frequently asked questions

For players sitting on the fence, the decision comes down to what you value in a game. If narrative is your priority—if you care more about a story that makes you cry than a mechanic that makes you sweat—*What Remains of Edith Finch* is an easy purchase at $19.99. For players who measure value in hours-per-dollar or prefer gameplay mechanics over emotional beats, wait for a sale or skip it. The game is short, and that shortness is central to its design. You don’t get a longer version of a poem.