Everything

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Critics Recommend

Average Score

Total Reviews: 35

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Everything wants you to explore the full scope of the universe, and the sheer scope of it is an achievement. But the game is ruined by how hard it drives its point home.

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Critics Recommend

Critic Reviews: 35

Critics Consensus

# Reviews: 35

Everything wants you to explore the full scope of the universe, and the sheer scope of it is an achievement. But the game is ruined by how hard it drives its point home.

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Critic Reviews for Everything

Critic Reviews

Score Distribution

35

Reviews

Average Score

100

Ranges

9/10

Colin Campbell

This is an exceptional piece of fantasy fiction, a metamorphosis machine, a toy, a game like no other. It’s a work of deep imagination, humor and thoughtfulness. Everything held me captive for many hours, and will continue to do so. It’s brave, bizarre, compelling and beautiful.

Marcy 21, 2017 |

Full Review

Everything is a grand experiment that manages to inspire and disappoint in equal measure.

Date Unavailable |

Full Review

6/10

Justin Clark (GameSpot)

5/10

Alice Bell (VideoGamer)

A nice, weird walk and a philosophical lecture, both unfortunately ruined by how hard the game drives its point home. Everything would be cleverer if it wasn’t seemingly trying to be so clever.

June 5, 2021 |

Full Review

Colin Campbell

9/10 - (Read Review)

Justin Clark (GameSpot)

6/10 - (Read Review)

Everything is a grand experiment that manages to inspire and disappoint in equal measure.

Alice Bell (VideoGamer)

5/10 - (Read Review)

A nice, weird walk and a philosophical lecture, both unfortunately ruined by how hard the game drives its point home. Everything would be cleverer if it wasn’t seemingly trying to be so clever.

**Read all 35 critic reviews on the desktop version of VSG.

Read the Reviews (35 total)

Outlet	Author	Score	Date	Quote	Read
CGMagazine	Cody Orme	6.5 / 10	04-24-2017	As much as I wanted to enjoy Everything, it’s an empty experience trying to be deeper than it really is.	Read review
COGconnected	Anthony Gomez	85 / 100	03-30-2017	After discussing it for a few minutes, I feel like I want to thank you all for coming to my TED talk. That’s because it’s so impressionistic, existential, philosophical … all the things people invoke when they want to convince you that video games can be art. But Everything has a leg up on a lot of those art-installation-as-games. Everything is also a lot of fun!	Read review
Cubed3	Thom Compton	6 / 10	03-21-2017	Everything will no doubt be included in the “Is it or is it not a game?” debate, but it is an interesting space to explore. It’s exactly as odd as it sounds, and many may walk away from it begrudgingly. If you stick it out, though, you may find something here that really scratches an itch you never knew you had. The problem is: how long can it be scratched before the itch goes away?	Read review
Destructoid	Josh Tolentino	7 / 10	03-20-2017	Everything feels to me like a mellow, less aggressive take on Katamari Damacy or Noby Noby Boy, a curious, reflective novelty that, for players in the right kind of mindset, can spark something profound.	Read review
Digital Chumps	Eric Layman	8 / 10	03-26-2017	David O’Reilly’s Everything is quite the experience and journey to undertake. It’s simple, yet deep. It asks you to think about ‘just being’, but encourages you to explore the thoughts and emotions of other beings in the game. It’s a lightly addictive game that will have you staring at your television for hours and leave you wanting to keep the experience alive for no particular reason other than to keep going, which could be a metaphor for any living creature struggling to know the how and why they exist.	Read review
Digitally Downloaded	Matt C.	5 / 5 stars	01-14-2019	The best way to describe Everything is that it’s a game that lets you play as everything. I don’t mean that in the sense that you can play as anything, though you can do that (at least, any of roughly 1000 different things coded into the game). Rather, I mean that it’s a game that lets you play as a conceptual Everything – that one grand, all-encompassing thing that we are all part of, that binds us together, and that exists within all of us.	Read review
EGM	Emma Schaefer	7 / 10	01-10-2019	Everything is a philosophy lecture turned into a game, and if you’re looking for some new insight on life and a sandbox to play in while you listen, it’ll provide. While the game offers up hundreds of choices of objects to become, it comes at the sacrifice of everything feeling the same.	Read review
Everyeye.it	Giuseppe Arace	Recommended	03-27-2017	Everything is an undefinable game in which we can literally control ‘everything’ we see. The new product made by David OReilly is an exaltation of senses and freedom, beauty and wonder.	Read review
Game Informer	Javy Gwaltney	8.5 / 10	03-23-2017	The controls take some getting used to, but Everything is easy to understand and play	Read review
Gamefa	Hamoon Motaghedi	6 / 10	12-30-2017	Everything is a half baked game but you can still play it and enjoy doing it. The game keeps you entertained for a while so you can give it a try. Everything is a good simulator and a bad game.	Read review
GameSkinny	Ty Arthur	8 / 10	03-24-2017	Reaction to Everything is going to be absolutely all over the map, because, well… it’s everything! It’s a toss up whether any given gamer is going to love or hate it.	Read review
GameSpew	Jamie Parry-Bruce	8 / 10	03-31-2017	Everything is, at once, utterly bizarre, brilliantly hilarious and incredibly profound.	Read review
GameSpot	Justin Clark	6 / 10	03-21-2017	Everything is a grand experiment that manages to inspire and disappoint in equal measure.	Read review
GameZone	Daniel R. Miller	5.5 / 10	03-25-2017	Everything more than lives up to its name, though its thinly crafted gameplay raises the question if it’s even a “game.” This one is for niche fans only.	Read review
God is a Geek	Gary Bailey	7 / 10	03-22-2017	The sheer scope of Everything is an incredible achievement, and it does offer at least a few hours of entertainment, before it inevitably becomes a bit stale.	Read review
Guardian	Kat Brewster	5 / 5 stars	03-24-2017	This persistence in spite of everything is Everything’s strength, but it is also to its detriment. It can begin to feel fairly lonely to exist in a universe which isn’t affected by your existence, or your changes.	Read review
Kotaku	Nathan Grayson	Recommended	03-22-2017	Maybe it was that little touch, or maybe it was the fact that I was a bleary-eyed mess playing the game at 4 AM, but I felt so connected to… everything.	Read review
Nintendo Life	Dom Reseigh-Lincoln	7 / 10	01-14-2019	Everything really does deliver on its abstract concept, but only if you’re willing to boot it up with an open mind. There’s no action, or even a cohesive plot. There are no XP bars to fill or loot to collect – just a universe and you, and a desire to determine just who ‘you’ really are. The basic textures and colours (and the hilarious way creatures just roll about like possessed statues) might stifle some, but Everything’s worth is more than skin deep. It’s a risky game – some will love it and some just won’t get it at all – but it’s an experience well worth undertaking, regardless of where you end up.	Read review
Nintendo Times	Alex Knight	7.5 / 10	01-11-2019	GOOD	Read review
NintendoWorldReport	Matthew Zawodniak	5.5 / 10	01-31-2019	Alan Watts’ philosophy lectures are intriguing, but it’s not very interesting getting from one lecture to the next. I was never able to be engaged or immersed in the world. Despite being a game about how all things are related, I found the silly, empty experience of Everything very unrelatable.	Read review
PC Gamer	Andy Kelly	80 / 100	04-27-2017	Funny, philosophical, and deeply, deeply weird, there’s nothing else quite like Everything on PC.	Read review
PCWorld	Hayden Dingman	4 / 5 stars	05-02-2017	Everything asks you to contemplate your place in the universe by inhabiting the point-of-view of hundreds of other creatures, plants, and objects.	Read review
PlayStation Universe	Zachary Lyons	7 / 10	03-21-2017	Everything provides a mellow environment to explore, with the perfect auditory compliments for your journey. The experience may be lost on some, but that’s okay. Others will thoroughly enjoy getting lost in the experience, despite minor frustrations like the needle-in-a-haystack search.	Read review
Polygon	Colin Campbell	9 / 10	03-21-2017	This is an exceptional piece of fantasy fiction, a metamorphosis machine, a toy, a game like no other. It’s a work of deep imagination, humor and thoughtfulness. Everything held me captive for many hours, and will continue to do so. It’s brave, bizarre, compelling and beautiful.	Read review
Post Arcade (National Post)	Chad Sapieha	7.5 / 10	05-01-2017	David O’Reilly’s unique universe simulation strives to create connections – some physical, some assumed – between literally everything	Read review
PS4Blog.net	EdEN	9 / 10	05-01-2017	You’re either going to love or hate Everything. It’s that type of game as it offers an experience that is pretty out there which is not going to be everyone’s cup of tea. Do I recommend the game? Certainly! It is a voyage that has to be experienced. I’m sure that even if you don’t end up liking the game, it will still leave its mark on you – you won’t be forgetting about this game anytime soon!	Read review
Push Square	Sammy Barker	8 / 10	03-21-2017	Everything is not for everyone, and thus it’s a hard game to score. This existential experience is not quite as pretentious as it appears to be, but it will still leave you mindful of your worth to the world – and the universe as a whole. Honestly, if you’ve ever found yourself enchanted by the sheer scale of space itself, then this game does an incredible job of communicating that through rudimentary interactivity alone.	Read review
Rock, Paper, Shotgun	Graham Smith	UnscoredFALSE	04-25-2017	By throwing out most of Spore’s traditional mechanics in favour of a cross between Katamari Damacy and Nested, Everything gets closer to sublimity. And though I don’t think it gets all the way there – not for me, not right now – the silliness is constant and delightful.	Read review
Sirus Gaming	Carlo Cutanda	5 / 10	05-20-2017	Everything is not an experience for everyone. Considering how trippy and weird the game is, I guess the most enjoyment you are going to have with this game is when playing it with friends while drunk or high.	Read review
SpazioGames	Daniele Spelta	Not Recommended	04-22-2017	Everything can’t be described as a game, it is a journey made by the mind of David OReilly, a pure experience of about it is the meaning of our life.	Read review
TheSixthAxis	Tuffcub	Recommended	03-27-2017	What you get out of Everything will depend entirely on you. You may get bored within minutes just as easily as you could spend hours wandering around alien continents as a slice of pizza. I’m not sure it can be described as fun in a traditional sense, and it sometimes feels like you are being forced to sit through through a complex lecture mixed with a dash of group therapy, but other times it can be utterly hilarious as you make baby tractors by dancing.	Read review
Use a Potion	Daryl Leach	7.3 / 10	03-26-2017	At its very core, Everything almost feels like the antithesis of a video game; sure, you’ve got the full freedom to interact with this colossal universe that seems to reinvent itself over and over, but it’s hard to find a purpose to anything that you’re doing. Whilst the lack of a real objective saw the game’s allure wearing thing on me after a few hours, actually seeing this universe and how expansive the interactive freedom offered to the player is was INCREDIBLY impressive and worth the admission price alone.	Read review
VGN	Andrea Dresseno	8 / 10	03-27-2017	Everything is different from anything you’ve ever tried in your life. For this reason, it can split the community and open a debate about the meaning of the videogames, the philosophy behind them, and what can/should be told in a game. The new creation from game designer David OReilly is not suitable for everyone: only if you are willing to get involved, you will really have a chance to enjoy the concept behind it.	Read review
VideoGamer	Alice Bell	5 / 10	04-19-2017	A nice, weird walk and a philosophical lecture, both unfortunately ruined by how hard the game drives its point home. Everything would be cleverer if it wasn’t seemingly trying to be so clever.	Read review
Washington Post	Christopher Byrd	Recommended	04-06-2017	I can only hope that “Everything,” opens the door for more philosophical games; it is the rare game that may push you to want to lead a better life.	Read review

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About Everything

Game Description / Storyline:

Everything is an interactive experience where everything you see is a thing you can be, from animals to planets to galaxies and beyond. Travel between outer and inner space, and explore a vast, interconnected universe of things without enforced goals, scores, or tasks to complete. Everything is a procedural, AI-driven simulation of the systems of nature, seen from the points of view of everything in the Universe. Narrated by the late British philosopher Alan Watts.

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