The first of three episodes of Orwell’s second season is out and I’m back to doing government work… for free.
Orwell is about an Orwellian nightmare, the government has a super program and is able to use social media, news and personal sources (phones, computers) to investigate into major criminal incidents.
The first game/season of Orwell was phenomenal, I absolutely loved the unique storytelling, and while it was only about 6 hours long, I got 11 hours of gameplay out of it through a few (required for achievements) replays.
Orwell Season 2 (also known as Ignorance is Knowledge) returns to the same day as the original game, seen by a news story of the bombing that started the original game. It’s a great tie into the original but what makes it especially nice is that it is about the entire connection to the original game. This is a game that stands on its own but has a good connection to the same universe.
As for Orwell Season 2, the game is similar to the first. There is a great new feature where you have to use a search, and thus must have the data to search. Sadly that’s all the new features in this episode. There’s also an “Influencer”, though it’s not used in episode 1.
Once again though, the story takes center stage. While only episode one is currently out. I’m riveted. I want to see what happens next, and I want to see if my guesses about the story come true. The story in the game is great, but it’s clearly part of a much larger story, and I have some guesses, though I won’t share that here about what else is hinted at or shown. It once again utilizes the system to maximum effect. Each step the player takes, he’s discovering new information and understanding something new. And the ending… I want more but I’m going to have to wait until March 8th. I’m sure I’ll be discussing the story with people online.
The story is currently smaller than Season one, starting with a missing person instead of an explosion, but it’s set to be more interesting, and I’m hopeful because it’s poised to be even better, and while it has been stated to be about “fake news” I think it’s going to be a very interesting exploration of this universe. I honestly can’t wait to see what happens next.
Just like the original game, I absolutely adore the game system. Exploring people’s “twitter” pages to grab nuggets of information, deciding what to upload and not upload is fantastic and I adore the exploration of the internet in the game.
People might claim “It’s not a game.” but it is, it’s actually quite interesting and the choices you make in the game do have some effect on the story. Though one of the two possible endings is quite hard to get (it took me four attempts to get it and I failed each time, I still haven’t achieved it yet.).
Even better, the game hints at a great use of the Time Limit system which was my favorite addition in the original story. Certain events happen at certain times, at least the game seems to imply this. I didn’t have a real good way to test which events are timed, but I do like the fact that the game seems to make you decide what to upload. At the same time, the one event that does seem to lean on this heavily… I think is a bit of smoke and mirrors. A great moment in the game, but I’m hoping there will be more in the game.
The one thing the game doesn’t do well is using a solid vernacular. It likes acronyms like FTP or keeps saying President Kassert over and over. Because they are making up a fictitious world, it’s easy to not realize President Kassert is the president of a second country, and easy to forget you’re in a country called… ugh, “The Nation”. Yeah, it was in the first game but doesn’t make that easy to stomach.
Similar to Papers Please, I wish this game had a simple quick reference/map that you can refer to so you can understand simple terms you should already know like the back of your hand. It’s not the end of the world, but a nicety the game could have had.
Finally, the last issue with this game is it’s not fully out yet. Now I love Orwell season one, and I bought this day one because I wanted another story from these guys. And I’ll tell you, I got a third of a really great story. I hope the next two episodes deliver a similarly great experience and I’m guessing I’ll give this five stars across the board. But I don’t have it all, I got about two hours of content here which is about on par with a third of the original game’s length. I’m going to recommend this game based on past performance and knowledge that the developer has a lot of skill. If you want to take a wait and see approach I’ll be updating my reviews, as well as posting about this on Twitter (@KinglinkReviews) as I go. But if you want a complete game, you’re not going to find it here… yet. It’s coming over five weeks, and that’s not so long. But I do admit, I kind of want more right now.
So I recommend this game fully. I enjoyed it, I loved it, I want another episode. I would recommend getting the bundle and playing the first game if you haven’t yet. There are no spoilers for this game (at least not obvious ones). But both stories are fantastic and the original game is currently on sale for 5 dollars and it is worth full price (double that). If you already have played Season 1, I think you should be able to judge this game on the merit of the first game. If you want another story in a similar style to the first game, you’ll definitely get it here. If you want something vastly different, Season 2 isn’t going to change your mind about the game, but I think it is what the fans wanted, at least this fan.
If this review has helped you or you want to see what other games I would recommend, and catch my updated review you can find my Steam curator page at this link.
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4.0