“Dream about yoU is a beautiful and thought-provoking game disguised as a cute little adventure, but its message and ending stay with you long past the ending credits.”
Platform: PC | Release Date: 14 Aug, 2026 | Hours Played: 4 hours
A world where the Great Flood has forced humanity to live on artificial islands, and an intelligent system called ELYSION runs society. Pretty dystopian, right?
That’s the world you find yourself in Dream about yoU, a sci-fi, comedy adventure game where “Dreams” are currency that you need to survive. Some people end up as ‘holos’, humans who uploaded their consciousness into ELYSION in exchange for a good life. You play as an unnamed delivery worker with no memories of their own, learning about this strange world alongside you. While they find some things unsettling, they have no reason to question them… because that’s just how the world is, right?
That is, until you suddenly find yourself falling from a helicopter with a blonde stranger called DU, telling you to travel into dreams with them… and maybe falling in love will help too.
If that plot change came completely out of nowhere, that’s exactly the kind of whiplash Dream about yoU gives you.
Collect Dreams… Literally
The gameplay mainly centres on exploring the dreams you travel to, completing puzzles and fetch quests along the way. Exploring and interacting with the world rewards you with Dreams, which can then be used to purchase items.
At first, it may feel like everything is nonsensical and incoherent, but slowly as you explore more of the dream worlds, everything starts to fit together in a satisfying way.
Even the Dreams you collect seem to become almost useless after a certain point. I initially assumed this was a design flaw, especially when I found myself sitting on a huge pile of them with little to spend them on. But later, the game gives that seemingly pointless accumulation a purpose, and suddenly something I had written off as bad design made complete sense.
Your character, eventually dubbed as NOISE by DU, is also initially a blank slate and mirrors the player, slowly growing with you, gaining their own personality and also expanding their own worldview and the meaning of dreams (such as realising it was not just currency.)
Customisation at its Finest
Speaking of the characters, the majority you speak to in the game appear as silhouettes with only names referring to what they are. The only faces you choose are NOISE’s and DU’s – and yes I did say choose. You are given an option to choose between genders and two looks for both of them, which also affect the sprites in the overworld and the CGs.
The bond that develops between the two characters comes very naturally, yet is incredibly impactful. Because you have control of how they are presented, I feel it can come off as a friendship or a romance, which is ultimately left to your interpretation.
And that’s where the strength of the story lies, because the stories in the worlds you travel to and their characters serve as allegories of dreams acting as a commodity that people have to sacrifice in order to survive.
The music was absolutely beautiful, really adding to the dreamlike atmosphere. Each world has its own tracks that fit its surroundings perfectly, with the different melodies coming together to create some genuinely memorable pieces. I loved it so much in fact that I ended up buying the soundtrack on Steam. The UI also deserves a mention, as its presentation made me feel like I was watching these strange dreams being projected onto a screen.
There were a few issues in the game, such as frame drops and dialogue choices being selected if I accidentally over-clicked, although luckily the choices don’t affect the outcome too much. The default language is Chinese but even when you choose the English dialogue option, there were some things left untranslated, but nothing that was game-breaking.
I did feel that some of the game’s mysteries may be clearer to Chinese-speaking players, as certain meanings rely on Chinese characters and wordplay. After digging further into the game’s details – because, spoiler, I loved it that much – I discovered the meaning behind one particular mystery that had been left unclear to me by the ending.
And the last thing I have to mention is… That I REALLY loved the ending. Often games end in a way that leaves me wanting more closure. But the ending to Dream about yoU left me feeling emotionally satisfied and hopeful. Of course, there are still things left unexplained, but the way the game ends leaves much of the interpretation up to you, which I think perfectly fits its storytelling. And it’s really beautiful. It did leave me wanting more but that’s because I didn’t want it to end.
9/10
Dream about yoU is a beautiful and thought-provoking game disguised as a cute little adventure, but its message and ending stay with you long past the ending credits.
To me, it was also a touching love story between two people that broke past boundaries between reality and dreams. Others might not see it that way but that’s the beauty of the game, to draw your own story with the core message being to keep dreaming, regardless of what kind.
You can purchase Dream about yoU on Steam.
This review was written as part of the Fall in Love Visual Novel Festival on Steam, and I was kindly provided with a review code by Studio Élan.
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