New Rue Valley Review

There are some good ideas in Rue Valley's depressioncore time loop, but the execution makes it feel more like a chore than a charm.

PC Gamer's got your back

Our experienced team dedicates many hours to every review, to really get to the heart of what matters most to you. Find out more about how we evaluate games and hardware.

Have you ever been bored? Have you ever been like, really bored, bored in the way where it feels like you've been removed from participating in the rest of the world, like time is moving differently for you than it's moving for other people? How about depressed? Have you ever felt like everything you do is meaningless, like nothing ever changes, like every moment you're living has happened before and will happen again, endlessly?

What is it? Time loop narrative RPG about mental health and Mars colonies. Or something.Release date Nov 11, 2025Expect to pay $30/£25Developer Emotion SparkPublisher OwlcatReviewed on Windows 11, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060, AMD Ryzen 9 4900HS, 16GB RAMSteam Deck UnknownLink Official site

You play Eugene Harrow, a man fresh off a mental breakdown who's been carted off to a motel in the middle of nowhere for some probably necessary but not very voluntary therapy and ends up stuck in a 47 minute time loop. This has the effect on his mental health that you might expect. As he explores the time he's allotted, he discovers the secrets of the loop, learns about the community he's found himself in, and figures out how to make it out in one piece.

Rue Valley is what I guess we have to call a Disco Elysium-like: isometric maps, stylized art, no combat, conversation-centric, with a hyper-internal protagonist whose personal monologue forms the bulk of the text. The conversation UI is on the left instead of the right, though, so we've shaken up the format somewhat. Character creation involves sliders between introverted and extroverted, impulsive and calculated, and sensitive and indifferent, with promises that it will be Eugene's reactive and customizable personality that makes your journey through the 47 minutes of his life unique.

This doesn't really happen. Eugene's personality comes out in interjections and exclamations (if you're extroverted) or grayed-out dialogue options (if you're introverted), none of which radically alter the outcome of conversations or your ability to complete quests. In fact, very little you do seems to alter any outcome of anything. It becomes clear after playing for a while (and aft

Source: PC Gamer