Paradise Marsh
Review

Paradise Marsh (2022) is an open-world collecting game where you explore a varied marsh to find insects to put their stars back in the night sky. You wander an endless wetland and collect creatures, skim stones and eat mushrooms as the weather and seasons change. Its unique visual style and intentional slow pace and gentle tone make it an adventure of exploration and discovery.

In a world where all the stars have fallen from the sky onto an expansive marsh, you traverse the ancient land and try to figure out a way to put them back. As you do, you use your net to find new species of animals, from frogs to insects, and add their details to your logbook notes. Along the way, you discover that these animals hold the key to putting the stars back, and are in fact star constellations themselves.

Your Notebook provides clues about the sort of habitat you can find these creatures in. As you find them and interact with a host of other creature-characters you restore them to the night sky and gradually bring light back to the darkness of night. The game features a procedurally generated landscape, meaning you have an infinite amount of marsh to explore and skim stones, read poems, take photos, go fishing pick flowers, or even just sit on a log and contemplate the beauty of the natural world. Then there are little quests to do things like clean up graffiti or find radio towers.

With a tranquil story that mirrors the stark natural beauty of the surroundings, it offers a chance to progress at your own pace through the game while giving you time to think and unwind, all in a novel way and setting.

Our examiner, Ben Kendall, first checked Paradise Marsh 2 years ago. It was re-examined by Andy Robertson and updated 3 weeks ago.