Beautifully strange and gleefully morose, What Remains of Edith Finch is a singularly amazing work of video game magical realism. Though brief and lacking any gameplay challenge, this is an incredibly special game by virtue of its narrative and creativity alone.

The multi-generational tale of the apparently cursed Finch family plays out through the eyes of our protagonist and narrator Edith, who returns to her family home (which is part labyrinth and part mausoleum), having recently become the sole remaining member of the clan.

In her quest to discover the truth about her history, Edith has to access a series of sealed rooms that each belonged to a family member and has been preserved since their deaths. Each one contains an artefact — be it a diary, a letter, or something more abstract — that allows Edith and the player to experience that family member's final moments.

The death sequences are fantastical and enthralling, with each one shifting to a new genre and art style, and each one requiring the player to wrap their head around a new mechanic of play. To describe any of them would be to spoil their impact, but they are among the most dream-like and emotionally powerful scenes I've ever encountered in a game, even though each one requires you to use at most two buttons and the control sticks.

In less capable hands a game in which the player systematically guides a whole family, including young children, to their deaths might have been horrible. In this case, however, I found myself surprised and excited by each new scene, even though I knew that my play was bringing the end closer for each character. And that sense was perfectly reflected in the optimism and exuberance the doomed family members themselves exhibit in the face of unavoidable death.

By cleverly expressing the world as the Finch's saw it, not as it actually was, the game manages to make the violent and the crushingly sad into something beautiful and mysterious.

What Remains of Edith Finch might only last a few hours but it's such an artfully layered experience that I was compelled to play it over multiple times. The death scenes in isolation are amazing marriages of narrative and game design, filled with metaphor and subtext that would be impossible if the story was told through any different medium.

Then there's the world of the game itself, the beautiful old house that's been modified and extended over the years to create an evocative space for each family member to live (and die) in. Besides finding hidden passages and exploring the picturesque grounds around the buildings, whole minutes can be spent pondering the subtle stories told by the bookshelves and backgrounds in the home.

The title of the game, by the way, is not a question. The other layer to the experience is the overarching theme of what a family history leaves us with, the end result of generations of stories passed down and mythologised. In that sense there is a also a very personal, relatable hook among the hocus pocus and tall tales.

What Remains of Edith Finch is out now for PlayStation 4 (reviewed) and PC.