Return to Grace is a meditation on AI and utopia
By Phil Bothun
In Return to Grace, you play as Adie, a tenacious space archaeologist, who has crash landed on Ganymede, a moon of Jupiter. After some extensive searching around the Sol System, Adie and her AI companion Allen have pinpointed Ganymede as the long-lost resting place of Grace, an AI responsible for a golden age of humanity.
You're here to find out what happened to Grace, and, if possible, turn it back on. What follows is a simple adventure through an abandoned station with slight puzzle solving and the chatter of Grace's AI cores: Logic, Control, and Empathy. It's basically a sci-fi version of Pixar's Inside Out.
As you navigate Grace's spire 800+ years since it was deactivated, you explore immaculately preserved quarters and structures that feel at odds with typical sci-fi portrayals of planet-based habitats. You'll solve very simple puzzles to break up walking through wonderfully rendered environments.
Each of Grace's component AI cores (Logic, Control, and Empathy) will chat with you through your adventure, providing background, banter, and direction. All of the companions are written well and the performances are very well done. Empathy is a particular favorite of mine.
When you're first introduced to Empathy, you're entering a lush garden with flash-frozen vegetation, perfectly preserved. Empathy guides you around the room, prodding Adie on her feelings, preferences, and intent. After you choose a flower that best represents Adie, Empathy leads Adie through a short deep breathing exercise beneath the pergola. Throughout this section Logic and Control are chiding Empathy, but they're quiet for the meditation. It's inherently a funny notion: it's the year 3810 and you're on a moon of Jupiter in a space that looks the opposite of any space station you can conjure have a meditation guided by an AI. The endearing thing about Return to Grace in general is that moments like this are taken straight.
Through conversation with the AI cores and exploring the station, you'll begin to unravel the mystery of what exactly happened to Grace. You'll explore the different zones of Grace's spire by solving simple memory puzzles, balancing on some beams, or unlocking audio logs by moving the left stick to a specific spot to "hack." The mini-games were simple and I really appreciated how they helped the game's pacing: there always seemed to be one of these puzzles when I started thinking about needing a sprint button.
The real core of Return to Grace is discussing religion and AI, as well as exploring what it means for humanity to be in a managed utopia, a discussion that unravels through the many parts of the station you visit, as well as some audio logs you find along the way.
Shortly after visiting the zen garden, you'll enter a dormitory section that used to house humans on pilgrimage to Grace. Each room has a prayer circle in front of a symbol depicting Grace, as well as a pneumatic tube. The audio logs you find—revealed to be "wishes" to Grace—are found near or inside these tubes. The audio logs you find range from someone wishing their favorite sports team would win an equivalent of the Super Bowl, to a grieving person only wishing for someone dear to them to return. There are two particular messages that stand out, tugging at the themes of the game.
The first is from a farmer suffering from inefficient fields. He complains about the forced pilgrimage to Grace (Grace manages all space travel and schedules pilgrimages for all citizens), arguing that he doesn't care for "robot theocracy," he simply wants to work his fields with the family he left behind. How Grace works is explained by this farmer: wishes are sent from pilgrims, ingested by Grace, and then a Keeper provides a sermon to the pilgrims bestowing wisdom and direction. Through worshipping the near-omnipotent machine god (as well as heavily-managed space logistics), humanity has achieved its golden age.
The second message is a simple one. A man recounts having watched old movies from before the golden age of wars and damsels being rescued from pirates; he observes that now, "nothing needs to be fixed, there's no one to save." He doesn't want war...he just wants something to happen.
So often, media depicts massive, generalized intelligence as all powerful antagonists. They are human creations that turn upon their creators (or oppressors) with violence and overwhelming firepower, usually as a quirk of their programming. What if an AI were to followthrough on its programming in the best way, presenting a world filled with art, culture, and plenty? Return to Grace posits that, perhaps, utopia may be a bit boring. Without conflict and adversity, would humanity simply stagnate? And if it were all to go away, would regaining your tenacity and sense of discovery be worth all the pain and suffering?
Return to Grace is a wonderfully written game offering an interesting exploration of AI. It's a short little mystery that doesn't overstay its welcome, and, by the end, I felt satisfied with the ending.
Throughout the journey, Return to Grace asks a question I've been thinking about since I finished it: would you awaken a machine god to guide humanity into a new golden age or stay the course and venture into the unknown?
