We Happy Few
| We Happy Few | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Studio | Compulsion Games | ||
| Publisher | Gearbox Publishing | ||
| Senior Developer | David Sears | ||
| Erstveröffent- lichung |
August 10, 2018 | ||
| platform | Microsoft Windows , PlayStation 4 , Xbox One | ||
| Game engine | Unreal Engine 4 | ||
| genre | Action adventure | ||
| Subject | Utopia | ||
| Game mode | Single player | ||
| control | Mouse , keyboard , gamepad | ||
| system advantages preconditions |
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| medium | Download , CD-ROM | ||
| language | multilingual | ||
| Age rating |
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We Happy Few is an action-adventure - computer game from the year 2018 , that of Compulsion Games developed and Gearbox Publishing for Microsoft Windows , PlayStation 4 and Xbox One was released. Previously, the Windows version was released in early access in 2016 .
Plot and characters
prehistory
The plot of the sci-fi - thriller takes place in the retro-futuristic England ( Europe ) at the time of the Cold War in the 1960s -Jahren after an alternate history in which the Germans the Second World War have won. At some point the island's inhabitants did something so bad that they were voluntarily allowed to live on the island free from the occupation. In order to escape the guilt and the nagging thoughts of the crime, residents began to use the drug Joy to become happier.
The player takes on the role of one of three rebellious characters who have to fulfill tasks and try to escape the fictional city of Wellington Walls. This turns out to be a crumbling dystopia on the verge of social collapse , as the residents overuse the hallucinogenic drug Joy, which keeps them happy and makes them forget the truth about their world. As a result, the residents believe they live in a utopia and are easier to manipulate and show a lack of morality , which leads to them being cruel to unhappy people. All those who do not take Joy have been expelled from Wellington Wells and those who voluntarily give up are considered downers and thus enemies who are to be filled with Joy or to be killed.
Arthur Hastings
Arthur Hastings is the first playable character and censor the city administration and to protect the inhabitants of unwanted thoughts and influences by censored newspapers. While looking through old newspaper articles he came across a report about his brother Percy. With the Joy dose waning at the time, he remembers the day when Percy disappeared and was allegedly sent to Germany. So he illegally stopped his dose completely to find out what happened to Percy. He is confronted with the gloomy reality that he previously only saw under the cheerful mask and whistled by his work colleagues and called his boss Victoria Byng a "downer", whereupon he is pursued by Bobby's, an evil grinning variant of the English street police .
He escapes through a supply tunnel to the Garden District and sees that things are going wrong in Wellington Wells. For example, the population on the heavily populated islands of Maidenholm, Parade and St. George's Holm pumps themselves up with drugs and turns out to be ignorant and ignorant, while the remainder, consisting of abandoned villages and crumbling ruins, rusted car wrecks and toxic waste dumps of misery , is gloomy Melancholy , despair and sadness are plagued. The joyless can go back to the city, but an allergy to the drug prevents them from participating in a carefree life and the voluntary renouncers are seen as downers and thus potential enemies. Together with other characters such as Sally and Ollie, Arthur uncovered hidden truths in the individual places.
It is finally revealed that the "very bad thing" at Wellington Wells was that the population had all children aged 13 and under sent to the Germans in exchange for their freedom. Arthur (who was then thirteen) recalls swapping his identity with Percy's so the Germans could take him instead. He notes that the German tanks that once threatened the city's residents were made of paper mache and that the population could resist. He also learns that Wellington Wells is slowly falling apart; the city's infrastructure is failing, a plague outbreak has occurred and Joy is becoming less effective, so scientist Anton Verloc is researching a new version of Joy to keep the population permanently happy and keep them in an endless euphoria.
Eventually Arthur arrives at a railway bridge leading out of Wellington Wells. In the epilogue, after the Sally and Ollie chapters are completed, the player has the choice of leaving Arthur Wellington Wells and continuing his search for Percy, or accepting his joy and joining the population in their ignorance.
Sally Boyle
Sally Boyle is a brilliant chemist who is loved and admired by others and is Arthur's crush. However, it hides a dark secret. She is working on a new variety of Joy in her own laboratory after being fired from Anton Verloc. Sally is threatened by the police to supply the people with Joy and is forced to search the town for new ingredients in order to produce a new batch.
She is also the secret mother of the first baby Gwen, who was born in Wellington Wells. When Gwen has measles , Sally asks Arthur, the protagonist of the first act and her childhood friend, to find a bottle of cod liver oil . Arthur, not knowing it is for Gwen, agrees in return for a letter from General Robert Byng, Sally's greatest patron and occasional lover. Finally, Sally remembers how her mother poisoned her family when she and her siblings were about to be brought to Germany. Sally was the only survivor left.
Arthur delivers the ingredient and considers having Sally accompany him on his escape, but when she tells him about Gwen he changes his mind and leaves. Determined to flee Wellington Wells with Gwen, Sally tries to steal General Byng's personal boat near his military base. She persuades Dr. Faraday to build a new engine for the boat, but she does not manage to steal the key because she falls into a trap.
She wakes up and finds General Byng in hiding as he intends to keep Sally prisoner until the problems in Wellington Wells are resolved. Meanwhile, Gwen is sent to the mainland. Sally refuses to cooperate and fights against Byng, then takes the key to the boat and locks it in the safe. At night, Sally Gwen sneaks to the boat and drives it out of Wellington Wells.
Ollie Starkey
Ollie Starkey is a curious, cursing Scot and former British Army soldier who served directly under the general. In contrast to the popular Sally, he is despised by his fellow men and he hears voices that are not there and lives in the garden district. His daughter Margaret died in the "very bad cause".
After helping Arthur, he decides to find General Byng and educate him about the paper mache tanks. When he reached him, he said he knew about it all along, but kept quiet to avoid a rebellion that he believed would have been successful and that Ollie actually knew too. He tries to get more information through General Victoria's daughter and finds out that she too knew and clears up further grievances to her. After he releases her, she escapes, and Ollie eventually decides to confront Uncle Jack, the friendly and celebrated Wellington Wells propagandist. He infiltrates his radio studio over the town hall, but finds out that Jack is missing.
For example, Ollie plays a tape of his last, but unpublished program, which drives him crazy when he realizes the dire situation in the city and remembers his daughter Margaret. Ollie finally realizes that his Margaret was actually Jack's daughter and Jack had tried to hide her from the Germans, but Ollie (who was her neighbor and hated Jack because of his cooperation with the Axis powers ) informed about it and she was shot while trying to escape.
Plagued by guilt, he had Sally Boyle make a potion a year ago to blur his memories. Ollie transfers the unreleased tape to town and awakens the people. Then he says goodbye to Margaret and builds a hot air balloon with which he flies out of Wellington Wells.
Gameplay
Game world and style
We Happy Few is a Rogue-like - action adventure , which also elements of a computer role-playing game , First Person Shooter , Puzzle , Survival Horror and stealth game contains and in the first-person view is played. The game world is embarrassed by a procedural synthesis and the view is adapted to the medication. In order to get ahead faster, it is possible for the player to use fast travel. The game can be played at levels of difficulty that are based on the skill and ability of the player. The different characters also have different play styles.
Course of the game
During the game, the player ingredients and recipes for making (collects Crafting can be, tools, weapons used) of medicinal items or the like. The player can also collect experience points in order to improve his character's abilities, which are represented by a skill tree.
Furthermore, the player must satisfy the character's needs for sleep , hunger and thirst , which also affect the game. In order not to attract attention, the player must be careful to take his pills and not behave too conspicuously, for example by walking too fast or by appearing outside the box.
The pill ensures that the character perceives everything in a cheerful and colorful way, but also suffers from side effects and, when stopped , sees everything gloomy, has to struggle with withdrawal symptoms and is classified as an enemy by the residents. You can play with checkpoints or the permadeath system.
Development and publication
Conception
The developers said they would focus on the story and underline the gameplay with a sense of paranoia , as well as make the player critically question his morals and thinking through consequential decisions that must be made. The game is inspired by British culture from the 20th century , with works such as Brazil , 1984 and Brave New World , which turn out to be pseudo utopias and are dedicated to the themes of a surveillance state . The title of the game comes from the St. Crispin's Day speech from William Shakespeare :
"And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be rememberèd—
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers "
- William Shakespeare, Henry V .
Announcement and Development
The game was first announced on March 13, 2015 by Compulsion Games, which had previously developed the game Contrast . Development began in 2015 after enough money was raised in a Kickstarter campaign up to July 4, 2015. The plan was 250 thousand Canadian dollars and raised over 330 thousand, which meant that other things such as crafting and a sandbox mode should also be implemented. The game was presented by Microsoft for the Xbox One at Gamescom 2015 and later also at the Electronic Entertainment Expo .
Actually, the game should already be released as a full version in April 2018, but in January of that year it was announced that the release would be postponed into the summer. Since August 2017 the developer studio has also been supported by Gearbox Software to expand the team and game and make them suitable for the consoles. Through early access, the developers found out that the narrative is more important to the players than the survival aspect in the game and adapted the game accordingly. The Unreal Engine 4 is used for development .
The game has been localized into several languages; among others into French, Italian, Spanish, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian and Chinese. Sandra Puhl, Markus Peters , Jan Truper and Marcel Weyers were responsible for the German localization .
publication
The early access version of the game was played for the first time on July 27, 2016. On August 10, 2018, the game was released as a full version for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. The sandbox mode is to be delivered free of charge and three downloadable content packages (DLCs) have been announced.
Ban in Australia
In Australia , the game was banned from the Australian Classification Board's Refused Classification because of drug use , among other things , and was therefore not rated , which meant the game was banned and could not be sold, imported or advertised. The developer then dealt with the authorities and promised a money back guarantee if the ban persists. In July 2018, however, the game was released because the drugs have an artistic meaning and labeled "Fantasy violence and interactive drug use".
reception
Reviews of the game
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We Happy Few received mixed reviews. The review database Metacritic aggregates 51 reviews to an average value of 63. The actual topic and setting, which is supposed to stimulate thought and puts the player before moral and emotional decisions through its interaction possibilities, the dramatic story, the satirical , psychedelic and crazy allusions were praised and background music, as well as the individual characters with their different facets and backgrounds and the associated numerous side quests. The colorful and detailed comic graphics, the soundscape and the large game world with a swinging sixties and retro-futurism atmosphere with a dark undertone and the many items that can be used and produced there are also praised . The weird humor is also compared to Monty Python . The combat system and crafting system is kept simple.
In addition to these largely positive, rather narrative aspects, some aspects of the game mechanics and technology were criticized. These include, among other things, the sometimes missing graphic power and freedom of the game world and problem-solving, the sometimes stupid-looking artificial intelligence of the non-player characters , the unbalanced loot distribution and the associated tiring farming, redundant and banal side missions and as well technical errors, for example in the frame rate , clipping and collision query .
Parallels in art design are also drawn to BioShock , Dishonored: The Mask of Anger , No One Lives Forever , Half-Life , Fallout , Doctor Who and Austin Powers .
Review of the game
Utopia and surveillance state
The subjects of (state decreed) drug consumption , censorship , filter bubbles , the surveillance state , propaganda , concealment and fading out, followers and mass manipulation through fake news are critically treated. Heise online draws a parallel to the present and says that even there large sections of society like the masked clowns from the game do not rely on facts and instead prefer to be manipulated by populists , and Spiegel Online also emphasizes the topicality in times of social media and Influenced by mass media . The game is compared with works such as Brazil , 1984 , V for Vendetta , A Clockwork Orange , Number 6 and Brave New World , which are also devoted to pseudo utopias.
Pharmaceutical industry
Dealing with mental illnesses such as depression is also criticized and the pharmaceutical industry with drugs such as antidepressant , which can influence a person's personality and thus make them appear like a drug-pumped zombie with a mask on. Due to the pressure of society and the resulting exclusion and stigmatization of behavior that does not conform to society, those affected are often forced to take such drugs and indulge their effects and hide behind the mask. Representations about it are often concealed or deliberately avoided in the media and society.
Adaptations
In March 2017, Gold Circle Films announced plans to make the game a feature film in collaboration with Compulsion Games and dj2 Entertainment . On November 27, 2018, Dark Horse Comics is releasing a 192-page book called The Art of We Happy Few .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ We Happy Few in the test: drug-free and having fun? In: PC GAMES. Retrieved August 18, 2018 .
- ↑ a b c We Happy Few in the test - In the intoxication of routine - GameStar. Retrieved August 18, 2018 .
- ↑ a b c We Happy Few Preview (Platform) - When happiness becomes hell. Retrieved August 19, 2018 .
- ↑ We Happy Few for Windows (2016) - MobyGames. Retrieved August 18, 2018 .
- ↑ We Happy Few is about drugs and Nazis and whatever you want it to be. Accessed August 19, 2018 (English).
- ↑ a b We Happy Few in the test - In the intoxication of routine - GameStar. Retrieved August 18, 2018 .
- ↑ a b c d We Happy Few in the test: drug-free and having fun? In: PC GAMES. Retrieved August 19, 2018 .
- ^ Joel Couture: Drugs, masks, and randomness: The moral gray areas of We Happy Few. Retrieved August 19, 2018 .
- ^ A Blog Post for the New Year. In: Compulsion Games. Retrieved August 19, 2018 .
- ↑ We Happy Few - First details about the new survival game - GameStar. Retrieved August 18, 2018 .
- ↑ We Happy Few: Contrast makers present their new project. In: PC GAMES. Retrieved August 18, 2018 .
- ↑ We Happy Few - Kickstarter campaign for the wacky survival game - GameStar. Retrieved August 18, 2018 .
- ↑ We Happy Few - Drug Survival Game Kickstarter Campaign Completed - GameStar. Retrieved August 18, 2018 .
- ↑ We Happy Few: Kickstarter campaign launched - 15 minutes of alpha gameplay. In: PC GAMES. Retrieved August 18, 2018 .
- ↑ We Happy Few: New game from the Contrast makers reaches Kickstarter goal. In: PC GAMES. Retrieved August 18, 2018 .
- ↑ Psychedelic survival game We Happy Few coming to Xbox One. In: polygon. Retrieved August 19, 2018 .
- ↑ We Happy Few is a drug-addled survival game set in a creepy alternate 1960s. In: The Verge. Retrieved August 19, 2018 .
- ↑ We Happy Few - Postponed to summer 2018, new character. Retrieved August 18, 2018 .
- ↑ We Happy Few: Postponed to summer 2018, new character. In: PC GAMES. Retrieved August 18, 2018 .
- ↑ Gearbox's We Happy Few publisher role unaffected by Microsoft's purchase of developer Compulsion. In: pcgamesinsider.biz. Retrieved August 19, 2018 .
- ↑ How 'We Happy Few' plans to avoid the pitfalls of 'No Man's Sky'. In: Engadget. Retrieved August 19, 2018 .
- ↑ Giancarlo Valdes: The Evolution of 'We Happy Few' From Survival Sim to Story-Driven Adventure. In: Variety. June 22, 2018. Retrieved August 19, 2018 .
- ↑ We Happy Few - Date announced for early access version and new gameplay - GameStar. Retrieved August 18, 2018 .
- ↑ We Happy Few: Now in Early Access on PC and Xbox One. In: PC GAMES. Retrieved August 18, 2018 .
- ↑ We Happy Few: Sandbox mode and three download extensions presented - 4Players.de. In: 4Players. Retrieved August 19, 2018 .
- ↑ We Happy Few - This is in the Season Pass, free sandbox mode. Retrieved August 19, 2018 .
- ↑ We Happy Few gets a Season Pass with story episodes and a sandbox mode. In: Eurogamer.de. Retrieved August 19, 2018 .
- ↑ We Happy Few - No approval for survival play in Australia. Retrieved August 18, 2018 .
- ↑ We Happy Few: No age rating in Australia for drug glorification. In: PC GAMES. Retrieved August 18, 2018 .
- ↑ We Happy Few - developer reacts to ban: money back if necessary. Retrieved August 18, 2018 .
- ↑ We Happy Few - Australia allows release for the wild drug trip. Retrieved August 18, 2018 .
- ↑ We Happy Few: Action game comes on the market in Australia. In: PC GAMES. Retrieved August 18, 2018 .
- ↑ We Happy Few. Retrieved August 18, 2018 .
- ↑ a b heise online: We Happy Few alluded to: drug trip between surveillance state and Monty Python. Retrieved on August 18, 2018 (German).
- ↑ a b We Happy Few in the test - In the intoxication of routine - GameStar. Retrieved August 18, 2018 .
- ↑ a b We Happy Few (PC) - rating, conclusion - GameStar. Retrieved August 18, 2018 .
- ↑ a b We Happy Few - Test, Action - 4Players.de. In: 4Players. Retrieved August 19, 2018 .
- ↑ a b We Happy Few alluded to: Drugs, madness and a desperate struggle for survival. In: PC GAMES. Retrieved August 19, 2018 .
- ↑ a b Achim Fehrenbach: "We Happy Few" in the test: Withdrawal makes you smart. In: Spiegel Online. August 11, 2018. Retrieved August 19, 2018 .
- ↑ a b "We Happy Few" in the test: Scavenger hunt in the very British Dystopia - derStandard.at. Retrieved August 19, 2018 .
- ↑ Simon Cox: 'We Happy Few': Game Redraws Sixties Britain as Deadly Dystopia. In: Rolling Stone. July 26, 2016. Retrieved August 19, 2018 .
- ↑ Steve Boxer: We Happy Few - the indie game about Britain that couldn't be more relevant. June 24, 2016, accessed August 19, 2018 .
- ↑ How "We Happy Few" Plays on Our Fears of Antidepressants. In: Inverse. Retrieved August 18, 2018 .
- ↑ Dave McNary: 'We Happy Few' Videogame Getting Movie Adaptation (EXCLUSIVE). In: Variety. April 1, 2017, accessed August 18, 2018 .
- ↑ We Happy Few - Survival game is made into a film - GameStar. Retrieved August 18, 2018 .
- ↑ We Happy Few in the cinema: Survival adventure is to be filmed. In: PC GAMES. Retrieved August 18, 2018 .
- ↑ The Art of We Happy Few HC :: Profile :: Dark Horse Comics. Accessed August 19, 2018 (English).