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Magnificent tense dystopia, December 2, 2023“The Archivist watched. The Archivist listened.”
And no matter what happens as the game progresses, this is how you always feel.
Every choice, every decision, weighing the responsibility to keep the protagonist surviving, a
tension never dispelled, a distrust of every outcome. Maybe there’s no one to trust. Even those who seem like they’re on your side?
It’s an eerie world the Archivist inhabits. A tiny functional apartment. An uncertain atmosphere with the threat of disease and the need to wear safety gear to go out beyond the apartment. Nothing seems natural, all is (bio) engineered or constructed.
The Archivist can’t remember why it is like it is, but slowly some idea of the history of this place and their place in history comes into view by decoding fragments of data stored in bacteria.
Your daily work is to decode and file documents to earn money for food and medicine and rent. Costs that constantly increase through the game. Even though it’s the future, it feels like life today.
Slowly you figure out the network of friendships and romantic connections, and the shape of the society in which you live. Not too fast though. You get tired and need to eat and sleep.
And you never quite get to know much about the mysterious archive and why it’s there. It’s another threat in your day, especially if you record the decoded information in the wrong way.
So against this bleak backdrop of daily life, it’s surprising to find that the story feels actually optimistic. Sure there are different paths to take, a range of endings, challenges, surprises and disappointments. Yet it never gives up on the hope that connections between people are necessary and sustaining.
In the breakdown analysis of the game, Autumn states “the numerical design of the mechanics makes the game fundamentally unwinnable. There is no ending where everything is just peachy.”
I disagree. At the level of pure numbers, perhaps you can’t win. Yet at the end of nearly every storyline there is a continuing future that offers possibilities to wonder what might happen next.
And also to wonder what else is hidden in the archives…