Causeway Studios’ The Haunting of Joni Evers is a horror walking sim which takes inspiration from Gone Home and What Remains of Edith Finch to tell the story of the titular character, Joni, as she faces the events that led up to her family breaking apart.
From the get-go, The Haunting of Joni Evers hit me with an absolutely gorgeous soundtrack by Gustavo Coutinho who has also worked on PAYDAY 3 and Reaching for Petals. It was incredibly moving right from the start and set the tone of the rest of the game almost immediately. It was filled with memorable pieces, ones which I will be keeping an eye out on Spotify for.
Similarly, as the only voiced character, Kelly Pekar had a big role to fill as Joni Evers but nailed her performance. Considering we are listening to Kelly, and only Kelly, speak throughout the whole duration of the game, it would have been really easy for a bad performance to have a negative effect on the whole experience. But Kelly delivers what is already lined up to be one of my favorite performances of the year. Not only is she able to fill those high emotional queues with a realistic portrayal, but she does an excellent job at the casual comments as we’re exploring around the house.
Joni lives alone at Cunningham House; what was once a large and beautiful family home is now mostly locked up and serves as a reminder of not only Joni’s struggles throughout life but also the absence of her family whom she is now estranged from. Her mother left for traveling when she was young. Her father, who was present but also not a model parent, has moved away to be with her grandma who does not have a lot of time left, and her sister has moved on to brighter pastures.
One night, strange anomalies start to happen around the house and Joni comes face to face with the vestiges of her family members. She must compile the memories of them in order to defeat a dark entity which haunts the home and is feeding off Joni’s negative emotions towards her family. As Joni, we explore the rooms of each family member, inspect items and piece together their story which will help Joni look at them in a different, more positive, light, ending with her mother who abandoned them.
As mentioned before, The Haunting of Joni Evers is a walking sim, so there is little to no gameplay besides exploring the environment and completing a few puzzles and chores. This should be fine for those who are fans of similar games such as Gone Home and What Remains of Edith Finch, but this does mean that the story needed to be excellent in order to carry the game.
For the most part, I loved uncovering the stories behind Joni’s family and also the house they grew up in. Similar to What Remains of Edith Finch and Gone Home, the house is a character in itself with its maze of huge rooms which are filled with the individual styles of who they belonged to. What we uncover about Joni’s mother, father, grandmother and sister are also surprising and I enjoyed the way the game found new ways to approach their actions or how Joni has previously felt about them. For example, Joni is initially bitter towards her grandmother who introduced her mother to the adventurous life as a traveler, and in turn eventually influenced her to leave her family to seek this life on her own. One of the key messages that I took away from The Haunting of Joni Evers is that while some things are impossible to forgive, we can at least try to understand them.
The biggest downside to the storyline for me was actually the paranormal elements. I don’t think The Haunting of Joni Evers needed a haunting at all. The demonic entity that possesses the house prompts Joni to face her past, but this also could have been done by having Joni sift through her family’s belongings without the need to introduce the vestiges. This could have been the story of a lonely woman trying to understand where things went wrong or maybe who was looking to finally cleanse the family home of bad memories by cleaning out the belongings. I think the storyline behind the paranormal elements really turns this into a more cliche experience and it especially starts to drag towards the end during the ‘final boss fight’.
This also ties into the visuals. The Haunting of Joni Evers looks great for the most part and I love the design of the house and the character behind each room. Some of the interior design used looks stunning (Joni’s grandma’s bathroom is especially gorgeous). But the visuals are, again, marred by the paranormal elements that come in the form of neon lights which look somewhat tacky. The vestiges are glowing orbs and they communicate with you by throwing neon text across the room.
On top of this, The Haunting of Joni Evers can barely be considered a horror game and as a horror game fan, I’m usually open to this term being used broadly. It was a while until any horror elements were introduced and when they were, they were very sparse and what effects were there ended up being overused. This again taps into my opinion that the paranormal elements could have just been left out.
Overall, The Haunting of Joni Evers, while it could have done without the haunting, is a touching walking sim. It’s story reminded me more of Gone Home than What Remains of Edith Finch as it’s more of a ‘simple yet effective’ approach. Those who are fans of this genre will also likely enjoy this game.
Jess reviewed The Haunting of Joni Evers on PC with a review code.
