There is no such thing as summer. After a few brutal winter months, the city is booming and its residents are making the most of the warm weather. Ete (French for “summer”) is a relaxing slice of life that perfectly captures the essence of Montreal at this time of year, warts and all.
You play as an artist who spends the summer in La Metropole. The first order of business is to set up an easel in your apartment, with little else but a mattress on it, no thanks to your rather brusque landlord. Once you’ve learned the basic controls, it’s time to explore your new surroundings.
This version of Montreal is effectively your canvas. It’s colorless at first, almost like it’s covered in snow. You can fill this world with watercolor, a little at a time. Developer Impossible pulls off a clever trick here as each item you count becomes a stamp to use in your drawings – your artist character gets inspiration from the world around him.
I spent several hours ignoring the main missions and exploring the various levels, enjoying myself as I restored color to the market, the tunnel, the front yard and the park. Like moving to a new city or place, while exploring (and coloring) the world around me, it became easier to navigate. And like most of life in this city, you do things at your own pace.
Although the narrative is painted by numbers, the characters of Ete surprisingly rich for such a short game (it can take several hours to beat focusing on the main story). Montreal is a melting pot and the game does a brilliant job of reflecting that in its NPCs. The characters you meet can be shy, friendly or a mix of both, and you’ll run into more than a few arguments.
Talking to the people you meet is a smart idea, as they will commission you to paint something for them with certain elements included. So if you haven’t found all the letters and symbols for the “I heart MTL” t-shirt, you’ll need to hunt and paint them first so you can use them as stamps. You have a lot of scope for how you can make these posted pieces, and patterns that you can hang in your house or sell in a cafe. You can use the money you earn to furnish your accommodation – something I didn’t bother with in my playthrough.
My favorite feature of the Ete it’s an admirable job by Impossible to extract the tangible elements of Montreal into a mystical world. Fairmount Bagel (the world’s best bagel shop) is immediately recognizable, as it is the equivalent of many bird cages hanging from the balcony of the apartment above it.
You will meet kids playing hockey on the trail. You’ll find someone putting up Canada Day decorations while complaining about a neighbor doing the same thing for Quebec’s national holiday. Cafe culture, second-hand furniture shops and amazing farmers markets are all there and ready. Even the city’s anti-capitalist movement gets its own episode. The Impossible captures much of what makes the city special.
Unfortunately, there are no festivals, although the real Montreal has a ton of running around this time of year. Old Montreal – the historic, most influential area in Europe along the river like tourist catnip – is also neglected. But it can be difficult for developers to participate in everything that makes a city so beautiful.
As someone who lives in Montreal, Ete it’s a good reminder of what’s right outside my door. I should probably drink more of that, even watching the world go by a terrace as I paint the last few corners of this fictional version of the same thing on my Steam Deck.
Ete is out now on PC.
