The Run (PC) Review

With The Run Paul Raschid continues to prove that he is the master of the FMV resurgence we’ve seen over the last several years. Xbox Tavern favourite The Complex is a high bar to beat, and while we may not quite get there with this, The Run has won me over enough to say it’s possibly my second favourite of his works to date. When you consider this also includes the likes of Hello Stranger, Five Dates, and The Gallery, this is no mean feat.

We play as fitness influencer Zanna (Roxanne McKee) who, on her way back from a Muay Thai course in Thailand, stops off at a remote Northern Italian village to tackle a renowned trail. We join her as she wakes up from the morning after the night before, joined by Matteo (George Blagdon), both of whom can’t quite recall the evening they spent together other than both being in a state of undress in her room. 

We’re introduced to the genre’s staple moral choices within minutes as Zanna can either be honest or kind to Matteo about his performance from the evening (as best as she can remember). From here, we’re regularly asked to pick from one of two action or moral choices; do we greet the elderly couple as we run past them, or barge our way through?; stop and help the man on crutches take stock to his shop?; choose to try and save someone from danger, or stop and film it for our VLOG from afar?

Zanna is here to document her adventures for her millions of followers, so that last choice isn’t necessarily as mean as it seems (or is it?). Early choices seem far less significant, but we soon reach one that has a major impact on the route of the story and her run. 

Spoilers will be avoided here of course, but we think it’s safe to say this choice is a simple left or right one. Do we take the Northern trail, or Southern? Both will impact the events of her run in significant ways, though the route itself will still cover both parts. For example, going South will have us come across a certain landmark much earlier, and as such a different chain of events play out there as opposed to coming across it towards the end of the run should we go North. This is true for the entire route, with vastly different scenes and choices presenting themselves. 

We soon discover that this idyllic route isn’t as safe as it seems as Zanna is chased by a gang of masked murderers looking to kill her and anyone else they come across. Unlike some other FMV titles, we can fail here and Zanna meets her end in some gruesome ways. We are afforded a good checkpointing system mind you, with us starting again where we left off to choose the other option. I think this is perhaps the only real niggle with The Run for me. I’ve always liked it when no matter what we pick the story continues, but here there are some options that just result in a game over no matter what. It works, certainly, but means that on repeat plays there’ll only be one right option in a handful of cases. Elsewhere, there are some real moral dilemmas to tackle at times, and more than a few grey area ones that had me leaving it until the last second to choose.

Performances are great throughout, with McKee and Blagden both putting up decent US accents and some real genuine feeling into their acting. When Zenna was being nice she felt warm to watch, whereas if she was mean there was a real bite to her attitude. Between this and some very smart editing the scene transitions felt very natural indeed, certainly some of the best I’ve seen in the genre.

At just over an hour in length, The Run isn’t going to last even a full evening in one go. But the key is the replayability. After I’d finished the story once, I still had only seen about a third of the scenes, a few of the deaths, and one ending of five. A second run has unlocked more, but the handy visual map of the area shows I still have a good few areas to find and choices to pick. 

And the story told here is well worth revisiting multiple times. Again, no spoilers, but I found the conclusion to the tale to be quite surprising, and upon repeat plays it paints things in a different light for sure. I’ll be playing it through a few more times to see more endings for sure. I’d have liked to have the option to pick up from a set point in the story i.e. start from the trail choice, or even later in the game at a few key moments, but we can at least skip all previously seen scenes to get through the repetition faster.

Conclusion

All in all, The Run is another excellent FMV title from Paul Raschid and his team. The performances are great, the choices present some real dilemmas, and the conclusion is satisfyingly surprising.

This game was tested and reviewed on PC (via Steam). All of the opinions and insights here are subject to that version. Game provided by the publisher.