That's not to say that what comes after the first chapter is bad, per se. Yet, knowing what the PS4 is capable of, it's still a bit of a crestfall. This was the issue with The Unfinished Swan in 2012, and it's not an issue that the pretty 60 frames-per-second, 1080p upgrade could ever fix. That unexpected beauty, unfortunately, only makes the fact that the game starts filling in the blank space with color and shadow in the next three chapters all the more disappointing. This sight might be one of the most transcendent, fascinating moments in any game, seeing black and white spatters form shapes, animals, architecture, and natural beauty. After traversing the landscape awhile, you reach higher ground and are able to look back over your creation. It's an elegant, soothing aesthetic, giving the player all sorts of leeway to play and make things messy, while still creating something pleasing to the eye. The world of The Unfinished Swan, in this first chapter, is a world of blank castles, paths, park benches, shallow ponds, blank statues, and rusty, creaking gates, all of which exist, and yet don't exist, until Monroe makes his mark. What follows is a first person game unlike anything else: An abstract, Jackson Pollock work of art of the player's making, where objects only take shape after you've splashed black paint all over the canvas, giving shape to each object, making the objects and paths stand out by contrast with the paint alone. Spoiler: The entire game takes place in Minas Tirith.
You hit one of the triggers or the touchpad, and Monroe throws an ink pellet, making his first haphazard black splotch on the world, and highlighting the way forward.
The screen fades to completely empty white space, with a tiny circle reticule in the center.
The storybook narration ends, the screen fades to white, and you're left with one of the most exhilarating moments in all of gaming. Soon after, the disembodied bird flaps off into the blank white nothingness of the painting, and Monroe follows. The Unfinished Swan starts with a kind, grandmotherly voice telling the story of Monroe, a newly orphaned young man, whose mother has just passed away, leaving him orphaned, leaving him nothing but her last, unfinished painting of a swan.
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