White Night

White Night does a lot right, delivering a great story which only dips slightly in the run up to its conclusion. The art style is fantastic, and while it hurts other things – like the visibility of the title's many collectibles – the trade-off is honestly worth it. Unfortunately, the release's biggest issues sit in the gameplay department, as it's exceedingly frustrating on far too many occasions. The end result is interesting, then, and worth experiencing – but perhaps not recommended for everyone.

Just enough obstacles exist to make that story feel as though it was earned, that the player participated in the telling, but conveying the story is the priority. From clever exploitation of gameplay mechanics to the pages and pages of rich exposition which carefully unravel and the moody jazz soundtrack, everything exists in service to the fiction. In that, it succeeds, and it's a story worth experiencing and deserving of praise.

White Night adeptly merges survival horror with noir to create an alluring visual style and atmosphere. However, neither the story nor the puzzles are exceptional, and the game comes up just short. It has substance to its style, but it also doesn't satisfactorily build off its base components – as well done as they are. In the end, like many noir stories, this game exists in the grey.