We Happy Few is a great game that has the potential to be an excellent game with a few tweaks here and there. I understand that some people feel as if we need to hold developers to a high standard if we are going to give them our money, but if we are judging the game in a vacuum, I don't think it's necessary to throw the baby out with the bathwater here. I tend to judge games based simply on the amount of fun I had playing them as well as, in the case of story-driven games, how well they provoked serious philosophical thought, and We Happy Few was certainly both fun and thought provoking despite its mechanical flaws. I would strongly recommend this to anyone who judges games the same way. Perhaps wait a little while for an update to fix the problems if you really want to maximize the enjoyment you get out of it, though. I could easily imagine rating this a point higher after the glitches are patched.
As I was playing through We Happy Few, there was one thought I couldn’t seem to get out of my head: If Bioshock and Dishonored made a child together, a process I would very much like to watch, and that child was sent to live with a creepy family in England, it would grow up to be We Happy Few. The question is, though, does that make it a satisfying gaming experience? I mean, some really cool parents have children who are right pricks. And analogies aside, plenty of games that have paid homage to classics have fallen woefully short of their predecessors.
With We Happy Few, a game that was originally funded through the use of a Kickstarter campaign, Compulsion has created a game that is ambitious, flawed, and, at times, absolutely brilliant. Let’s take a look at the different aspects of this game and see what they did really well and what came up a little short.
Story
Once in awhile, a game comes along with a story that just lifts everyone’s spirits. It somehow has the ability to make the player want to be a better person while reminding them how kind and gentle the human race can be. We Happy Few is pretty much the opposite of those games.
We Happy Few takes place in an alternate reality where Germany won World War II. I know what you’re thinking: “Germany didn’t win World War II? But I saw this thing in Charlottesville.” I can see where you’d be confused, but rest assured that the Germans and the rest of the axis powers did, in fact, lose World War II in our reality. In the game, however, the Gerries were victorious and the effects of that are still being felt in Wellington Wells, the fictional British island town where the game is set, more than 20 years later.
You begin the game at a redacting machine as a meek bugger named Arthur who comes across an old article featuring a contest apparently won by him and his brother Percy. Not wanting to lose this memory inspires him to forgo taking his Joy (or it doesn’t… perhaps you should try both options) and thus the adventure begins with a brand new “woke” (as the kids would say) Arthur. As the game progresses, you uncover more and more mysteries about what happened to Percy as well as what this “Very Bad Thing” is that the residents of Wellington Wells did shortly after the war ended. This thing, that is very bad, is really the driving force of the entire story. It is the reason that Joy was invented, and the reason that all of Wellington Wells is gradually going insane.
You ultimately go on to play as two other characters, Sally and Ollie, after the Arthur storyline almost reaches its conclusion. The time spent as each character is certainly not equal, however, as you will spend considerably more time as Arthur than you will as the other two. This is also not a Grand Theft Auto V situation where you go back and forth between the characters. The story is very linear even with a fair amount of exploration possible; however you may find that you end up interacting with one of the other two playable characters at different points throughout the story. You may. I’ll never tell… You twisted my arm… You do.
I was extremely satisfied with the entire story. Compulsion’s ability to spin a narrative should certainly be commended. Their not-so-subtle indictment of prescription drug culture as well as their ability to craft one of the creepier dystopian environments I’ve ever come across in the video game world makes this game stand out even with a few glaring flaws, which I will get to shortly.
Gameplay
If BioShock is the father and Dishonored is the mother, which is what I have arbitrarily decided, We Happy Few gets its looks from its father and its personality from its mother. Now, when I say personality, I am mostly referring to the combat system. When it comes to combat, stealth plays a major part in We Happy Few unless you’re a reckless asshole. I would like to say I don’t mean that, but it’s honestly pretty accurate. If you try to battle every enemy you come across mano a mano, you’re going to find yourself on the business end of the proverbial can of whoop ass pretty frequently. Every time you level up, you receive a few points to put into a perk tree. There are really only two classes of perks. You have your combat perks and your stealth perks. Keep in mind when deciding which you want to put your points in to that you are not Corvo Attano from Dishonored. You are the desk jockey Arthur (for most of the game, at least) and one of your best weapons is an umbrella (and not even like a Kingsmen umbrella).
The crafting system is slightly reminiscent of The Last of Us in that you sort of feel that you should pick up every single piece of junk you find lest you miss out on building the one thing that’s going to save your miserable, Joyless life. A little bit of duct tape here, a piece of cloth there, and next thing you know you’re on an episode of video game hoarders with your family members saying that it all started with you trying to make a lockpick. A lot of what you pick up can actually be useful, but when you start picking up rotting potatoes because you might get hungry later, you may want to reevaluate the way you make life decisions.
Of the two primary complaints I had about this game, the one that stood out the most was the fact that the behavior of the NPCs was very erratic at times. For example, there are times when you will have to resort to violence against others. I know that’s a little unheard of in video games, but it’s true. This will sometimes result in bodies lying around, either unconscious from a proper good choke hold or dead from a proper good… umbrella. When NPCs happen upon these bodies, they are supposed to become suspicious or even hostile towards the player character; however, I would often find one of them staring down at the body for an extended period of time as if they were contemplating the intricacies of the human body or perhaps considering an act of deviance so far removed from societal norms that we here at Digital Chumps would be loath to even mention it… You twisted my arm… Postmortem cuddling.
As a veteran of Bethesda’s Fallout and Elder Scrolls games, erratic NPC behavior is not a deal breaker for me whatsoever. It’s slightly irritating at times, but it didn’t get in the way of me appreciating the gameplay as a whole. However, I certainly wouldn’t blame someone if they felt as if this ruined any kind of immersive experience they might have had within this world. I would remind those pessimists that these problems will most likely be fixed in a future update, though.
Visual
I mentioned that We Happy Few looked like its father (Bioshock) in many ways, and that’s not only true about character design but also the environments. In so many ways, this is a visually stunning game, which brings us to the second major complaint I had about the game. The fact that this game has so much potential, visually speaking, makes it even more of a shame that this was sometimes marred by bits of frame rate lag and a myriad of other graphical issues. There were many times throughout the game where I would walk into a new area only to have it take a few seconds for things to come into focus. Trees, buildings, and the rest of the surroundings would remain blurry for a little while, and this was certainly frustrating. In addition to that, many NPCs shared the exact same face. You could chalk that up to the overarching theme of uniform insanity within Wellington Wells, but that would be a bit of a cop out.
I think it’s important to note, however, and I realize like it might seem as if I am playing the part of the Compulsion apologist, but I would remind you if these issues completely ruin any chance you have of enjoying a game that these are things that can be fixed with future updates. Having to say that so much might cause you to ask the question, “Why didn’t they fix these issues before they released the game?” Why indeed.
Audio
At one point, I came across a house that was about as creepy as any abandoned house I’ve ever ventured into in a game. I heard some sphincter tighteningly creepy music coming from a record player, and I needed to put a stop to it. Of course it didn’t just stop immediately, though. It played for another ten seconds while gradually getting slower. So much for making things less creepy.
It’s moments like that in We Happy Few where you realize just how large a role the audio has in crafting this uneasy environment. Between the music, sound effects, and voice acting, there is little in the way of audio to complain about here. In regard to the voice acting, a big plus for the audio in the game is hearing the characters’ inner monologues as they discover, remember, or… kill something. Hearing Arthur’s apologetic, nervous ramblings as you choke someone out or off them is both disturbing and funny. You almost feel guilty for corrupting this poor guy when you decide to take the lethal approach to a confrontation because he says things like, “Oh God, what have we become?”
Verdict
We Happy Few is a great game that has the potential to be an excellent game with a few tweaks here and there. I understand that some people feel as if we need to hold developers to a high standard if we are going to give them our money, but if we are judging the game in a vacuum, I don’t think it’s necessary to throw the baby out with the bathwater here. I tend to judge games based simply on the amount of fun I had playing them as well as, in the case of story-driven games, how well they provoked serious philosophical thought, and We Happy Few was certainly both fun and thought provoking despite its mechanical flaws. I would strongly recommend this to anyone who judges games the same way. Perhaps wait a little while for an update to fix the problems if you really want to maximize the enjoyment you get out of it, though. I could easily imagine rating this a point higher after the glitches are patched.