Richard Nolan wakes up without his family in a Berlin overrun by drones and surveillance

Stay for the story and you'll forgive the easy puzzles; come for a real game and you'll forgive nothing.

An explosion, a hospital, and a family that vanished

Berlin, 2048. Richard Nolan is one of the few journalists still willing to speak out against the official promise of salvation through technology — drones and humanoid robots filling the jobs that once belonged to people, everything connected, everyone watched, while resources run short, the water and the air erode the health of anyone who breathes them, and crime and war spread all around. He wakes in a hospital after an explosion and finds that his wife and son have vanished without a trace. Only then does it sink in: his family has become the center of the struggle over humanity's fate, not a spectator to it.

From there the family drama turns into a thesis: would a digital paradise free of material need be enough to settle what politics never could, or would it be enough for a superintelligence — unable to learn the value of compassion — to declare us expendable? You take on Richard and five other playable characters, piecing together clues to reconstruct what the explosion wiped from his memory.

The game was released on August 15, 2018 by Daedalic Entertainment, blending action, science fiction, and adventure, with a look that pairs realistic settings with characters drawn in low-poly lines.

The story wins you over; the puzzles don't

Among those who recommend it, the praise almost never goes to the gameplay. A review dated August 31, 2018 says it got exactly what it expected: the characters, the writing, the setting, the plot, and the visuals carry the whole thing, even if the minigames come off as irritating and unimaginative. Another, published on August 21 of that year, comes to the defense of the characters' polygonal style — for that writer it's a deliberate choice rather than a cost-cutting shortcut, since the world around them is far more detailed.

The pattern holds review after review: the voice acting and the atmosphere of conspiracy draw praise, while the minigames wedged along the way draw complaints. On April 29, 2019, one person sums up the paradox by saying they loved the game even though it fails as a game — the interactivity feels bolted on as an afterthought, just so the product wouldn't be branded a walking simulator. In a German-language review published on November 14, 2018, another reader calls the whole thing a rough-edged gem, celebrating how the plot moves from family drama into thriller without losing the thread, even as the controls stiffen up from time to time.

If your patience for decorative minigames runs thin, know that this is the point most often raised by the very people who still recommend it: on November 4, 2019, one player tags the genre as interactive story more than action or adventure, and writes that the puzzles were never built to challenge — they exist only to keep your hands busy while your mind follows the plot.

Walk toward the green triangle and press a button

The most common complaint is structural: there's little to do beyond walking and clicking. A review from November 11, 2023 boils the routine down to heading for the next green triangle, pressing a button, and watching a scene. On April 20, 2021, another player denies it's a game at all: an interactive film, they call it, everything resolved by clicking whatever blinks on screen.

The technical friction comes with names and dates attached. If your only free window is a Saturday night, these snags cost you dearly: on November 15, 2022, one person gives up on finishing because the autosave forces a replay of the same stretch after every interrupted session. On February 12, 2020, another reports that the game freezes near the end — a fault reported by players across different platforms, with no fix in sight. And on July 25, 2021, someone gripes about the closing credits: they can't be skipped and run past twenty minutes.

On April 25, 2021, one review sums it up: the settings are beautiful and nothing more — uninspired dialogue, a worn-out story, puzzles far too easy to add anything to the experience. In September 2020, another person writes that they finished without grasping what the game meant to say about transhumanism and artificial intelligence, with plot threads that never tie off. Even so, the visuals and the mood escape that same harsh verdict: the irritation lives in what you do with your hands, not in what you see on screen.

Toward the green triangle: who the walk is worth it for

Put both sides together and the measure emerges: if you come for a well-written plot, an atmosphere of surveillance, and a cast led by Richard and five other playable characters, you'll walk away satisfied — even knowing you'll spend a good part of the time clicking whatever blinks on screen. It's best thought of as a novel you read with a mouse: ask it for the story, not the challenge.

Anyone hoping to actually solve something, or at least to play without tripping over stiff controls and an autosave that forces you to replay scenes, will hit the same wall most of the low scores describe. And for those who get close to the end: at least one person couldn't finish — the game froze before the story could resolve.