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0 If “story-driven adventure steeped in Slavic folklore” is a phrase that interests you, then get ready for this one! The End of the Sun, developed by the small, family-run studio The End of the Sun Forge, certainly piqued my interest when I first saw it. Originally releasing on Steam in 2025 to a “Very Positive” reception, the game is now available for PlayStation 5.
Is this a tale worth telling? Or will playing this game have you begging for the end of the actual sun? Let’s find out!
Spend Your Days in the Sunshiiiiiiine!
With plenty of walking simulators out there, it can be difficult to find ones that tell a genuinely engaging story. Got any recommendations for someone who is admittedly not too clued in on the genre? Let me know in the comments below, so I can add them to my ever-expanding backlog! But, for now, let’s get right into the review of The End of the Sun!
An Ashter’s Journey
Players take control of the Ashter, a fire mage who also tracks mythical beasts. Sounds like the coolest job ever, doesn’t it? Well, when your character is tracking a Rarog (think large, unfriendly phoenix), then suddenly things aren’t so cool. You see, the Rarog causes time to distort and change, and as it’s settled down close to a village, it’s up to the Ashter to get rid of the beast for good.
The opening story beats left me rather confused. A lot of information is dumped onto you very quickly, when you’ve barely had time to walk more than a few steps. Thankfully, things do start to make sense eventually, but this narrative overload so early on may put some people off immediately. Stick with it, though, because there’s a lot of interesting folklore to learn about!
Thanks to the Rarog, there’s lots of time travel, too! Each time period is set in one of the four seasons (years apart, not just a month or two), and seeing characters and the environment change between them is done well. Each snippet of certain stories may not necessarily be in chronological order. But, by piecing together fragments, these smaller stories come together, which, in turn, help in furthering the overall narrative. It’s a relatively unique method of storytelling, and for the most part it works quite well. I was surprised by the lack of emotional impact and no real reason to become invested in these characters. For a game all about the story, some heart-rending moments would have been nice.
Gameplay
The actual gameplay mechanics are relatively simple here. You wander around the map in first-person, searching for bonfires. Why bonfires? Well, since the Ashter is a fire mage, he is able to interact with bonfires that start that area’s fragment of the story. Lighting them binds you to that area until you’re able to solve a puzzle and continue on to the next bonfire. I say puzzles, but that feels too generous. Solving the majority of them boils down to little more than finding an item and putting it in the correct place. There are the occasional puzzles that require more of the player, but these are too few and far between. So much more could have been done to add a little challenge, as there is little to no thought needed to figure them out.
As mentioned earlier, time plays a huge role in The End of the Sun. Travelling through time is simple, with each of the four seasons represented by bonfires in a dreamlike, ethereal world. You’ll need to hop from each of the four points in time in order to progress. For example, missing items, or previously blocked paths, may be found in another time period.
Graphics & Audio
The End of the Sun is a lovely-looking walk through serene forests and peaceful riversides. Although character animations are pretty stiff, the actual models are fairly well-made. My biggest issue is the performance, however. Stand in place and the game looks fine. It’s when you start walking and you start to see the screen tearing, the frame drops, and overall sluggishness. It’s a genuine shame, and even after adjusting the V-sync and FPS settings, I saw no improvements.
As for the audio, whilst the Ashter’s narration as you journey throughout the game is voiced well, that can’t be said about every character. There are no outright awful performances at least, but some are slightly more stilted than others. On a more positive note, the music was genuinely great. It really ties in to the relaxed, almost meditative nature of the game as a whole, and it does it well!
Longevity
To get to the end of The End of the Sun (hah!) took me around five hours. I hadn’t fully explored every area and uncovered every note or bit of lore. That being said, I didn’t go out of my way to hunt down every last morsel of information.
Five hours felt like the perfect length of time for a game of this ilk. If it were shorter it would run the risk of rushing through an already complex narrative. On the flip side, much longer, and I do feel I may have grown bored of wandering around the tranquil environments.
Final Thoughts
Despite the confusing start and my lack of knowledge when it comes to Slavic folklore, The End of the Sun was a pretty interesting journey. That said, it isn’t without its issues. The lack of actual puzzles harms the game the most, with most simply being basic fetch quests. Coupled with the story that doesn’t reach the emotional heights I was expecting and the poor graphical performance, The End of the Sun is an interesting, if flawed, experience.
Therefore, The End of the Sun receives the Thumb Culture Silver Award!
Disclaimer: A code was received in order to write this review.
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