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Press release:
Brighton, United Kingdom – 14 February 2022.
The China-based indie games publisher Secret Mode and Brighton-based (the UK) indie games developer The Chinese Room, are today very pleased to announce that they will celebrate the tenth anniversary of “Dear Esther” by making the genre-defining 2012 narrative exploration game free to download from February 14th to February 15th via Steam.

Dear Esther’s tenth anniversary arrives just two weeks ahead of The Chinese Room’s latest tale, Little Orpheus, which arrives on PC and consoles on 1 March.

On 14 February 2012, Dear Esther immersed players in its stunningly-realised world – a remote and desolate island somewhere in the Outer Hebrides. Abandoning traditional gameplay for a pure story-driven experience, Dear Esther combined beautiful environments with a breath-taking soundtrack to tell a powerful story of love, loss, guilt and redemption.

Dear Esther has won multiple awards since its release in 2012, including the prize for “Excellence in Visual Arts” at the 2012 Independent Games Festival, “Best Use of Narrative” at the 2012 Develop Awards, “Visual Design” and four more awards at the 2012 TIGA Awards, and five nominations at the 2012 BAFTA awards.

“It was a joy working on Dear Esther with such a creative, talented and inspiring group of developers, and we’ve been delighted and humbled by the warmth of the gaming community over the last ten years,” said Dan Pinchbeck of The Chinese Room.

“We are thrilled to offer Dear Esther to a new generation of players for its tenth anniversary, and I’m personally looking forward to hearing from those players who are able to explore Dear Esther’s island today for the very first time.”

Esther is usually £7.99 on Steam but is available to download for free from 14 to 15 February. Dear Esther is also available for purchase on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and iOS devices.

The Chinese Room’s other titles include Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture, and Little Orpheus – launching 1 March for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Steam, Epic Games Store and Nintendo Switch.

Follow The Chinese Room on Twitter or visit TheChineseRoom.co.uk for more details.

About The Chinese Room
Founded by Dan Pinchbeck in 2010, The Chinese Room – a Sumo Digital Studio – is the Brighton-based award-winning developer of Dear Esther, Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture, and Little Orpheus. We strive to spin worlds, sculpt characters and weave narratives that are compelling, rich and emotive. As humans, we’ve always told stories and played games. What we get to do, every day, is amazing.

About Secret Mode
Greetings from The Bunker! Secret Mode is the newly founded publishing wing of the award-winning Sumo Group Plc. Our goal is to publish internally developed projects from any of our 11 game development studios across the UK, US, Europe, and India, as well as third party independent game developers. We believe that games are for everyone, and that creativity has no limits. We believe quality and fun are everything.