Dystopian fiction has become more and more popular as of late, perhaps because of the seemingly never-ending strife throughout our world. The genre has been around a long time, with even Mary Shelley writing a dystopian pandemic novel about the last human survivor called The Last Man. In 1921, the Russian writer Yevgeny Zamyatin wrote the cautionary tale We which was banned by the Russian government until the late 1980s and served as the primary inspiration for George Orwell’s 1984, the seminal work on government oversight and technological overreach which we have, in many ways, achieved. These types of dystopian futures (or even presents) have made their way slowly into gaming by way of games such as Watchdogs, Ministry of Broadcast (a more comedic view…our review is here), Orwell: Ignorange is Strength, and many more. Liberated from Atomic Wolf and publisher Walkabout is the latest in these games and uses a unique blend of action and comic book style to tell its story.
Liberated is a series of four interconnected “comics” that tell the story of a society ruled by a totalitarian government which oppresses its people and the handful of resistance fighters trying to stop them. These fighters are faceless, much like V in V For Vendetta, and call themselves “The Liberated”. Each comic tells a story that ties into the next and completes the tale. Interspersed in the comic panels are action sequences that look like they’re taking place in a black and white comic as well. It’s a recipe that’s worked in the past for games like Comic Zone and FRAMED Collection.
The storyline in Liberated is decent but it’s all ground we’ve covered before. There’s nothing truly fresh here, no hot take that spins the genre on its head. It’s a well-written thriller overall, played out mostly in comic book panels. The first comic covers an estranged child of a government official, the second one a police chief and so on. The characters are interesting, the dialogue is decent, and this would easily make a readable comic book if it were on the shelves in your local comic book store, probably one worth buying.
But then we come to the gameplay. Liberated has some fairly rough gameplay, and there’s really no good excuse for it. Gameplay takes place entirely on a two dimensional field featuring what can only laughingly be referred to as “stealth” and action. Hide behind a wall, grab a guy, choke him out, move on. There’s no depth, sneaking up behind them is too slow, and there are only a handful of enemies per action sequence. Later on when you acquire weapons, aiming with the right stick puts out a laser sight and you can simply walk up to enemies and headshot them one by one with barely any effort, especially on levels with flat ground. There’s no effort involved, no fear, no challenge.
There are some basic box pushing environmental puzzles here but they’re rudimentary at best, and the “puzzle” segments of the game require you to do little more than spin tiles until they match. Jumping is a chore and any level that requires precise jumping is frustrating due to the unresponsive controls, often tossing you into a pit without warning. Quick time events are blazing fast and irritating, taking even further away from the effect the story has. Between the simplistic gameplay and frustrating controls there’s a lot to dislike in Liberated’s action sequences.
Liberated is also a mixed bag visually. The game is almost entirely in black and white, but it’s more of a yellowed newsprint look than true black and white. It’s obvious that the developers were going for a noir aesthetic but it doesn’t quite hit the mark. Gameplay instead comes off lifeless and backgrounds are drained of their personality with the lack of color. Some of the comic book scenes could use more distinction as well, and the almost entirely black and white format of the game quickly becomes repetitious. Add to that that the recommended brightness is noticeably too dim (as you can see below) and you’ve got a mess. If you’re shot enough, the edges of the screen turn red, which is a nice change of pace, but it fades as you auto-heal. Music is similarly bleak. The soundtrack fades easily into the background and you’ll likely barely notice it. There’s definitely a bright spot here with the voice acting though, which is excellent and carries the comic book scenes quite well. It’s just too bad the gameplay doesn’t have the same impact.
If you like dark, dystopian fiction, have a decent patience level, and love comic books, Liberated might be a fun experience, but at $20 it’s a stretch. There’s just not enough polish in the gameplay here to warrant the full price of the game, and stories like this one have simply been told better. It’s a valiant attempt to tell a timely tale that simply falls flat and ends up being surprisingly forgettable. If you need a time filler and Liberated is on sale, maybe give it a shot but overall, this is a title better off left in, well, 1984.
This review is based on a digital copy of Liberated provided by the publisher. It was played on an I7-8700K with 16 GB of DDR4-3000 RAM, an Asus GeForce GTX 1080 ROG Strix graphics card, and an Xbox One controller connected via USB. In addition to Steam, Liberated is also available for Nintendo Switch, PS4, and Xbox One.