The Invincible Review

Unlike the open-ended, Delilah-less finale of Firewatch, I wasn’t disappointed when my choices made in The Invincible caused me not to cross paths with the indomitable, titular spacecraft.

The red herring chase that was Firewatch‘s government conspiracies, murder mysteries, and star-crossed lovers all came crashing down in the final moments of the game. Any narrative expectations players had of potential resolutions were dissolved by hand-waving reveals. Answering all the mysteries with such point-blank apathy felt like a chilly wet blanket draped over me.

But the knife in the heart was not meeting that voice at the other end of the radio. Barring the many thematic rationales, I couldn’t help but feel shamed by my want for the game to have some kind of twist or emotional payoff.

The Invincible does not build towards a particular moment. Much of its drama centers around astrobiologist Yasna’s search for what happened to her missing crew and a potential escape off the planet of Regis III as danger begins to escalate.

Going in to The Invincible, I had little context as to what the game was going to be. I’ve never read the Stanislaw Lem novel the game is based upon but did peruse its Wikipedia page for context. The handful of trailers I watched indicated the game was tense and ripe with hard science fiction imagery.

The mystery surrounding the what The Invincible was only served to heighten the game’s tension in its early hours. Often I find the knowledge of looming dread to sharpen the longer a potential reveal is staved off. And developer Starward Industries has a keen sense of how to manipulate player expectations.

Players open on the planet of Regis III with Yasna unaware of how she ended up there. Because no life was initially detected on the planet, there was no reason for an astrobiologist to be there. But for an unknown reason, the arid wasteland is what greets Yasna when she opens her eyes.

Unless an introductory comic at the main menu is examined by players, there is little context as to why Yasna and her crew have come to Regis III. Along the way, The Invincible provides missing narrative information to incrementally fill in gaps of knowledge. While temporary amnesia can be a trite plot device, the way it is integrated into The Invincible does not feel like poor storytelling.

Yasna and her other five crewmates aboard the Dragonfly are members of the Commonwealth on their way home from a research mission. In the vein of Alien, Regis III is an unplanned stop in the return voyage. Previous intelligence has determined the planet possibly devoid of life and not worth investigating. Then why is word of the Alliance’s capital ship The Invincible arriving being discussed?

Akin to the space race of the USSR and the USA, The Invincible sees its feuding factions of the Commonwealth and the Alliance as opposing forces of great means. However, much narrative groundwork is done to paint the Alliance as misguided and clandestine, despite the terrifying power of its monolithic spacecraft.

The black and white detailing of the Alliance through the eyes of Yasna and her captain, the astrogator Novik, are certainly biased. But it does an impeccable job of painting just a nebulous enough picture for players to establish the state and stakes of The Invincible‘s world. It also allows audiences the opportunity to mistrust its primary voices: a semi-amnesiac scientist and a patriotic leader.

Of course the ragtag group of the Dragonfly whose backs are against the wall represent the noble scientific drive of discovery while the Alliance merely dominates through brute force. Though Starward Industries does not dwell on the unreliable narrator angle, players would do well to not entirely accept what is being told to them. And thankfully the game provides an avenue to express doubt with optional dialog choices throughout.

Yet those concerns and complications take a backseat as Yasna works to understand how she reached the surface of Regis III. And the methodology to do so involves extremely analog methods for such a “futuristic” setting.

In The Invincible, mankind is capable of intergalactic travel. This universe is rife with scientific research vessels, helpful robots, towering excavation equipment, and deadly sentries with antimatter beams. But all this technology is very much grounded in the reality of the 1960s–the decade in which Stanislaw Lem’s novel was written–and the onset of the space race.

After awakening, Yasna has to open up a map consisting of blue grid paper with the topography drawn on and noteworthy locales and points of interest scrawled on it. She uses a set of binoculars to focus on distant landmarks to gain a heading and the player takes off towards a possible destination.

Being a “walking simulator,” much of The Invincible transpires along the paths Yasna walks across Regis III. The opening moments of the game impress upon the player the barren, dominating vastness of the planet. Sandy dunes and sharp cliffs cover the landscape. A small pool of water with a few fish indicate that the team did manage to find life of some sort upon touching down.

But that sheer alien wilderness is perhaps The Invincible‘s greatest persistent strength. At no point does Starward Industries lose sight of its artistic direction for Regis III. Up above past the atmosphere, players will see distant moons and suns and planets orbit up and around the horizon. Much like a dense forest may appear to an extraterrestrial visitor, Regis III makes little sense. And while not outwardly hostile, its foreign presence alludes to potential turmoil.

Yasna and the player are both meant to feel very alone on this adventure. The early twinges of amnesia fall away within a few hours and players are completely caught up in the present. The initial encounter with her crew’s camp is barren and terrifying. The player climbs up the side of a cliff and peers at a humanoid figure amongst the silence. All that remains are a barely functional robot and a blubbering crewmate.

The tension escalates as players push through a tight pathway and into what feels like a completely different planet. The reds and tans of Regis III have been replaced with greenish skies and grey rocks. Protruding from the ground is a strange metal structure. A tracker that indicates the proximity of other people or robots with a singular white light alerts that two somethings are nearby.

Dread might not be the most appropriate mood in The Invincible but it often dances with curiosity as players fear for the worst but can’t resist uncovering the next secret.

What aids in capturing this emotional back and forth is the game’s keen ability to place players in the shoes of Yasna. While Regis III is a distinct character in the game and its weight is continuously felt, that impact is enhanced by the gravity of Yasna’s presence.

Part of this is done by the constant visual reminder that players are inhabiting a character wearing their helmet, often speaking to another person thousands of miles above them in orbit. As long as Yasna wears her helmet, the tiny microphone attached to the helmet is visible in the bottom left of the screen. It’s a simple visual touch that often grounded me in the game.

The “dated” feel of the technology used in the game and its analog stylings are chunky and flawed. Yasna’s helmet will fog up if she runs too long. It will often obscure with dirt or moisture. Her heart and oxygen monitors are attached to dials on the sleeve of her suit. By forgoing advanced technology for something more believable in our day and age, The Invincible approaches a reality that we could possibly exist in.

The multitude of touches to stay true to this aesthetic while providing interesting narrative bits kept me hooked. Yasna can investigate drones and other robots for their memories, which are stored in the form of photographs that must be shuffled through and read to gain a sense of time or understanding. A detector that highlights metal will be used to follow paths of interest throughout the game.

Much of The Invincible can be seen as window dressing and that’s not a slight. Players may understandably get lost at times or feel as if the game meanders for too long in certain spots without significant narrative progression.

As a player who often scours the playable space, it can be frustrating when a game allows players the opportunity to fully explore with little or no payoff. This was one of the more damning aspects of Fort Solis, a science fiction game that had yearned to have its setting be anywhere near as intoxicating as The Invincible. While the game had its share of dead ends, I couldn’t ignore that the spaces I found myself in were fully-realized and often done in service of realistic world-building.

To better paint the game’s picture, a vast amount of credit has to be given to voice actress Daisy May who absolutely carries the weight of The Invincible on her back–along with the game’s astounding writing. May blends compassion, distress, anger, glee, and curiosity so well in this performance. Better yet, players have the option to pick how Yasna responds, or not, further shaping the character they wish her to be.

Unfortunately, I do wish I could fully compliment the voice work done by Novik, the voice on the other end of Yasna’s communications. However, during my time with The Invincible prior to launch, I could barely hear Novik’s voice and the range of delivery he had as well. Regardless of the audio settings or playing with headphones on, the dialog was barely audible.

Considering how prominent Novik’s character is throughout the journey, it was an issue that impacted my game. Honestly, I can’t be sure if this was an oversight by Starward Industries or a bug but it almost makes me not want to recommend The Invincible until this problem is solved because it has such a prominent effect on the game. Without subtitles I would have absolutely not been able to make out most of what Novik was saying, making it extremely difficult to know how my Yasna would respond. A few times when wrapped up with the action on screen, I would miss the subtitles. And because the game doesn’t have the best checkpointing and virtually no save system, I had to accept the loss.

And while we are on the glaring problems with The Invincible, audio issues also extended to certain parts of the game being too quiet or too loud. At one point, my rover I would drive around Regis III seemed to have an invisible part of it broken off as a crashing sound would play whenever I drove it, drowning out any other sound in the game. Here and there, Yasna’s arms and body would not agree with other objects in the game, making collision detection a mess as she would melt and twist into doors or panels. And one hilarious bug actually forced me to reload from a checkpoint when, during a cutscene, the game decided to move the camera behind Yasna’s eyeballs and mouth, which had apparently been programmed in. It was slightly terrifying but it took me a few beats to realize it was not a part of the scene.

Those grievances aside, I still cannot help but recommend The Invincible as an entirely unique experience.

Whenever the moody ambient soundtrack kicked in to heighten the mood, I gripped my controller and couldn’t help but continuing the plunge into the mysteries of Regis III. The promise of alternate endings and various other outcomes for interactions have enticed me to return to The Invincible when enough time has passed and any technical woes have been ironed out.

Most importantly, however, is the feeling I was left with as the game culminated in its final moments. Going back to Firewatch and the absence of meeting Delilah face to face; The Invincible owes a lot to Campo Santo’s otherwise incredible game as much as Campo Santo owes Fullbright’s Gone Home.

Is it entirely necessary for a developer of one of these narrative-driven games to use a fantastical reveal as its carrot on a stick? No. With Gone Home, I fully thought a ghost would float out of the attic or something. And while that may be a problem with my individual expectations, I can’t help but divert some of that blame to Fullbright.

But The Invincible never felt like it led me astray in such a way. When the game neared its end, I was given the option to wait for the arrival of the Alliance’s most opulent spacecraft. But that didn’t feel right for the Yasna I had forged along the way, the one who was devoted to understanding the persistent threat encountered in the game, to perhaps better aid her crew and those who would come along in the future. And, poetically, the game’s title had actually transcended its namesake, further strengthening my resolve and appreciation.

Of course, If I so wished, I could make another attempt at a different outcome. But The Invincible‘s message of discovery, of looming dread, of loss and wonder, continued to captivate me in its 10 hours. Often I was enthralled but mostly I was just fascinated by how engaging the whole thing had been from start to finish.

The Invincible does not stray far from the borders of the many narrative-driven games it takes inspiration from. But the retro-futuristic aesthetic coupled with a narrative that shifts with tension and mystery, makes it one of the more memorable titles in the genre. Barring some unfortunate but resolvable issues, the planet of Regis III is constantly captivating, rife with alien mysteries to uncover.