In The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, you play as Paul Prospero, an occult detective who receives a disturbing letter from Ethan Carter and realizes that the boy is in grave danger. When Paul arrives in Ethan's home of Red Creek Valley, he realizes things are even worse than he imagined. Ethan has vanished in the wake of a brutal murder, which Paul comes to see might not be the only murder to investigate. Using both regular and supernatural detective skills, Paul must figure out what happened to the missing boy.
Set in the last days of summer 1992, players investigate the disappearance of Lucas Fairfax, a young boy from the fictional rural town of Kingdom, Virginia. The game is experienced through the eyes of Anne Tarver, a graduate FBI special agent assigned to her first case. As a rookie detective, she's paired with an experienced partner, Maria Halperin, whom Tarver's superiors instruct to keep a watchful eye on. As the story progresses, the pair's trust in each other is tested, and their investigation takes a supernatural turn.