Gone Home, the first game from the Fullbright Company, is the greatest video game love story ever told and proof, in case any more were needed, that video games do not require shooting or punching or jumping or action of any kind to create gripping fiction.

The game employs the familiar first-person perspective that was popularized by monster-killing games like Doom and Quake, and later by Halo and Call of Duty. But there are no guns, no space marines, no future soldiers here, nor any enemies whatsoever, at least that can be seen. There’s just a house, a young woman and a mystery.

The player is cast as Kaitlin Greenbriar, a 21-year-old college student who arrives at her family’s home in Portland, Ore., in the middle of the night on June 7, 1995. She has returned after a year in Europe to find her parents absent and a note from her missing younger sister, Sam, taped to the front door.

From there, the game is one of almost archaeological exploration. As Kaitlin, the player searches through closets and drawers to find artifacts of family life that explain what happened to everyone. Quickly it emerges that Sam, a high school senior, has a crush on a girl named Lonnie. Their story — told through the technologies of mid-1990s high school life, like crumpled notes passed during classes, photographs that had to be developed to be seen, mixtapes of riot grrrl music, even mimeographed zines — forms the game’s spine.