There’s nothing quite like a summer in Montreal. After several brutal winter months, the city bursts to life and its residents make the very most of the warmer weather. Été (French for “summer”) is a relaxing slice-of-life game that deftly captures the essence of Montreal at this time of year, warts and all.
You play as an artist who is spending the summer in La Metropole. The first order of business is to set up an easel in your apartment, which has little else but a mattress in it, no thanks to your somewhat brusk landlord. Once you have 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 as if it’s covered in snow. You can fill this world with watercolor, a little at a time. Developer Impossible pulls off a smart trick here as each object you color becomes a stamp that you can use in your paintings — your artist character is literally taking inspiration from the world around them.
I spent several hours ignoring the main missions and exploring the various levels, enjoying myself as I restored color to a market, alleyway, front yard and park. Just like moving into a new city or neighborhood, the more I explored (and colored in) the world around me, the easier it became to navigate. And as with much of life in this city, you do things at your own pace.
While the narrative is fairly paint-by-numbers, the characters of Été are surprisingly rich for such a short game (it would only take a few hours to beat by focusing on the main story). Montreal is a melting pot and the game does a deft job of reflecting that in its NPCs. The characters you encounter may be gruff, friendly or a mix of both, and you’ll run into more than a few arguments.
Talking to the people you encounter is a smart idea, since they’ll often commission you to paint something for them with specific elements included. So if you’ve yet to find all the letters and symbols for an “I heart MTL” T-shirt, you’ll need to hunt down and paint them first so you can use them as stamps. You have a lot of scope in how to create these commissioned pieces, as well as custom ones to hang in your apartment or sell at a cafe. You can use the money you earn to furnish your residence — something I didn’t really bother with in my playthrough.
My favorite aspect of Été is just the brilliant job Impossible has done of distilling recognizable aspects of life in Montreal into an abstract world. Fairmount Bagel (the best bagel shop on the planet) is instantly recognizable, as is an approximation of a famous flower shop that has many, many bird cages dangling from the apartment balconies above it.
You’ll run into kids playing hockey in an alleyway. You’ll find someone making Canada Day decorations while complaining about a neighbor who’s doing the same thing for Quebec’s national holiday. The cafe culture, second-hand furniture stores and wonderful farmer’s markets are all present and correct. Even the city’s anti-capitalist movement gets its own subplot. Impossible has nailed much of what makes the city so special.
Unfortunately, there are no festivals, even though the real Montreal has a ton running simultaneously at this time of year. Old Montreal — a historic, heavily European-influenced neighborhood by the river that’s like catnip for tourists — is overlooked as well. But it would be tough for the developers to factor in everything that makes the city so great.
As someone who lives in Montreal, Été is a gorgeous reminder of what’s right outside my doorstep. I should maybe go drink more of that in, even just to watch the world pass by from a terrasse as I paint the final few corners of this sumptuous fictional version of the same thing on my Steam Deck.
Été is out now on PC.