An Odyssey: Echoes of War
By Natalia Theodoridou
☆ (9/10)
Whelp. An Odyssey: Echoes of War actually made me so depressed I need to take a couple days away from anything dark or serious. I lowkey let out a little tear at the ending I got. Just a little one, mind you. Written by Natalia Theodoridou, you play as gasp long suffering Odysseus, that kingly man, as he attempts to sail home. However, this Odysseus is not the one by Homer; nope, you can play as Odyssesa or use another name entirely. Just know you’ll be reliving his experiences in The Odyssey but with a light modern polish. I was curious how Theodoridou would handle a linear story in a format known for its emphasis on player choice, but somehow they meld the two perfectly. In this short game, I’ve encountered the most beautiful, melancholy reflections on war, loss, love, glory—passages that seem plucked from Homer’s Odyssey itself. I’ve always loved The Odyssey when I was studying it back in college. Yes, the battles were bloodthirsty and brilliant, but Homer’s epic, I once argued, could be read as anti-war in its vivid, unflinching descriptions of death and destruction, or even the sympathy extended toward enemy soldiers who. were once are sons, husbands, and fathers. Theodoridou focuses more on the echoes of war, indeed. They aren’t interested in the clamor of battle; they’re interested in what war leaves behind, what it steals, what it warps inside you long after the battlefield is gone. The branching and choices are impressive for a smaller work, but I’ll be thinking of the writing for a while. (And thank you to the staff for giving me a free copy! Or not, because I felt physically ill when I finished reading.)
Pros:
The writing as a whole is stunning. Can a work be a Greek retelling without Homeric epithets? Of course not, which is why Theodoridou leans fully into Homeric texture—rosy-fingered dawn, the wine-dark sea, the old rules of hospital and supplication, invocations to the Muse—yet never feels like they’re merely copying. The prose is weathered and aching, almost tired in the way a war veteran is tired. As your battered little ship floats merrily along, you’ll have deep conversations with your crewmates on what you’ve left behind or what you’re looking forward. There’s a strange tenderness, almost, in the writing. A sadness, a melancholy, for something you lost, or for something you never had.
Some long monologues I love:
- “But I will never forgive myself for risking it in the first place. Your mercy is for other people. Not for you.”
- “Don’t you ever wish you could be someone else?”
“What use is wishing?" he replies. He shows you his calloused palm. “We are born onto this earth unasked, made to bear our names and our weapons and our shields unasked, our lives hanging by a thread spun by the Fates. Wishing will change none of that.”
- “And yet I’ve known you to value actions, not words,” I say.
“And what are actions,” she says, “without an account of them?” She motions with her head towards Demodocus. “What is your story without someone to narrate it? You can only remember with words. You can only feel with words. And my memory and my feeling is broken.” She unfastens the knife from her waistband. “Because if you were to cut me with this blade, you would see blood, but I would bleed eshar.” She points up. “I look at this and I see ‘sky’ but I remember intephes. You say Priam was my father, and I remember my tati.” She smiles sadly. “My story will never be whole,” she says. “No bridge will ever bridge who I am now with who I was before.”
- “People say we make pleasure out of sorrows,” Parthenope says, stretching her very human legs. “Isn’t this the lot of many women? Somebody else’s pleasure, our sorrows.”
- “How can love be a defeat?” I ask.
“A nymph knows not what love is,” Circe replies, her voice harsh and cutting like a blade. “I speak from experience. Mortals fall for our charms like pigs walking into a pit.”
“Does it matter, if the pig walks happy to its death?” I ask.
“Spoken like a human,” Circe scoffs. “Like a priest spraying water into the eyes of a sacrificial ox and pretending the animal has agreed to its own death when it jerks its head. A comedy of innocence.” She turns to face you and grasps your shoulders. “You’re better than this. Do not fool yourself. Don’t walk freely into the gods’ nets.”
- “What are we, if not our memories, and the memory of us?”
“I don’t know,” Calypso replies. “I think perhaps some deeds carry their own weight. Some kindnesses have value, whether they are remembered or not.”
- “History will be repeated anyway,” Calypso replies. “History is but the expression of human nature. People will make the same mistakes again and again, whether they remember what came before or not. Mortals are bound by their nature.”
- “Alas, the fruit has no effect on immortal beings like myself,” she replies. “Death is the plague of mortals. Ours is memory.”
- “Is happiness a fruit that heroes can ever enjoy? If one is prideful and a hero, perhaps they will taste a happy moment in their prime–but then the inevitable fall will come, and they will cry bitterly at the foot of the hill that was their life. If they are humble, they will be prone to put the needs of others before their own, and thus they’ll push the fruit away.” She looks at you, then back at Polyxena. "I have yet to find a hero who is happy, or a happy person who can rightfully be called a hero. But then, perhaps happiness is not the lot of mortals. Perhaps what one can hope for is a life rich in moments of joy, of companionship and the pleasures that buoy the human heart, and in all these things.”
FUCK. ME. UPPPPPPP.
Mechanically, it’s linear but allows freedom. The stats—Born Leader, Silver Tongued, Fast as a Torrent, Strong as a Storm, plus your inventory, plus your chosen weapon, PLUS your divine parent—create a strong backbone, and your choices come up again and again in the narrative. Yes, you get to talk to your divine parent (Zeus, in my case). YES, they will help you on your quest. I also loved how Theodoridou keeps the main plot points of the original—Polyphemus the Cyclops, Scylla and Charybdis, the Sirens, the Land of the Lotus-Eaters—but allows you to choose how you react and act. You can talk to the Sirens. You don’t have to kill Polyphemus. You can even abandon Ithaca all together.
Choices matter in a distinctly ancient-Greek way. You choose how your hero relates to the gods and to fate, and that choice shadows everything: your guilt, your victories, your longing for home. Sometimes, small decisions beget enormous accidents. Sometimes, the world goes awry for seemingly no reason. Sometimes all the pretty things are broken. Ah, I almost forgot how petty the Greek gods can be. I will never talk shit about Greek tragic heros again. There is a character the gods expect you to play, and fighting this usually ends badly. Sometimes you do everything right and still lose. I wanted to be a hero. I wanted to be good, and brave, and just, and loyal. I tried to do no harm, yet I ended up hurting people anyway. How many people have died by my hands alone? How could I hurt Calypso and Polyxena so deeply, whose only crime was loving me more than I could spare? (I’m in my feels, leave me alone, dawg.)
It’s deeply, exuberantly LGBT in a way that feels mythic rather than modern: you can play as Odysseus himself or rebuild the legend as a woman, a nonbinary hero, or something in between, and the game lets you tailor how you present. You can choose your genitalia, no matter your gender, and how you can present. Husbands having husbands are casually referenced. Penelope can be a woman, a man, or nonbinary. You can be monogamous, polyamorous (!), or wandering in heart as much as in body. It’s strange at first—gender flipped Homeric epics aren’t exactly in the standard curriculum I read—but the strangeness fits. The ancient world was always weirder than we pretend. (I also loved how Telemachus still exists as your “real” son even if you played as a lesbian. The gods literally delivered him straight to your doorstep. Real tbh.)
The endings. They will ask some hard questions. MAJOR STORY SPOILERS but: Who do you love more: your son or your wife? If you could bring back one from the dead, who would you choose? Is it worth it, when they come back as a shadow of themselves, if they mutter at night and dream of an underworld of no laughter or life?. I got everything I wanted. I ended up a god. My wife and son are safe, sheltered by my sacrifice; my son is a wise king. My loyal dog still breathed at my feet. The people adored me. But why do I feel so lonely? I thought divinity would be a blessing. Instead it felt like exile. Immortality stretched out before me like the endless sea, and I realized too late that I had traded my humanity for the illusion of protection. They would wither away in the end. I would remain. It was one of those endings that hits so hard you want to start over immediately—not because the game failed, but because it succeeded too well. I found myself wishing I could sail home as a mortal, lie on Ithaca’s shores as a man, and die as a man. The game nails that ancient truth: immortality is a curse disguised as a gift.
Cons:
Polyamorous romance (!) is gorgeous but slightly underdeveloped. The relationship between Calypso and Polyxena is heartfelt and compelling, but Calypso arrives a little too late in the narrative for me to connect with her.
Ending felt a bit rushed. While the journey itself is rich and immersive, the final chapters wrap up quickly relative to the depth of earlier choices. I wished I could have a moment more with Penelope and Telemachus. Like, dude, I turned into a fuckin’ god for you. Can’t you say “I love you?”
Not beginner-friendly. The game assumes some familiarity with classical Greek literature and can be challenging if you haven’t studied the myths or Homer’s style. Still, I’m bummed by the fact that An Odyssey: Echoes of War only has 13 reviews—and a Mixed review!