Just in time for the holidays, Whitethorn Games and Gameous have announced that Lake: Season’s Greetings will launch on November 15, 2023.
Season’s Greetings is a prequel chapter of the small-town slice-of-life game Lake. Set before the events of the base game, you’re dropped in Providence Oaks as protagonist Meredith’s father, Thomas Weiss. He was previously an offscreen character in Lake, but now will get to color in the backstory with his own point of view. It’s 1985 in a small town, and that’s sort of relaxing. Let’s rent some horror and shove it into the VHS player.
Not only that, but, as the title implies, the town is completely cloaked in snow. Thomas is delivering packages during the height of the holidays, which probably means Christmas music. I can’t say I’m down for that because I have a lot of trauma from working in retail for a couple of holidays. It might be even worse than that pop country in the base Lake.
I felt pretty lukewarm about Lake back when I reviewed it. This was mostly because I felt that the narrative really thought you should love small towns and look down on the busy lives of urban dwellers. I grew up in a rural area, and while it has its comforts, it’s not all fresh apple pie and how-do-you-dos.
On the other hand, I love a good holiday game and am often interested to see if a developer takes feedback into account when revisiting a concept. November might be a busy month, but maybe I’ll be able to fit in another visit to Providence Oaks.
Lake: Season’s Greetings launches on November 15, 2023 on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S.
