We Happy Few was a much anticipated game that was able to get to market through crowd funding and several changes along the way. What catches your attention first about the game is the setting and atmosphere. If I could some it up in a few choice words, bizarre, psychedelic and groovy come to mind. Depending on where you are on the map, you get some bright and eye-catching colours that make you feel like you took one of those pills your character "chooses" to take. But the surrounding area outside the towns are is appropriately bleak and helps sell the hopelessness of this time. Parts of this game play like a fever dream and even when its at its most vibrant, there's a sinister undertone that is ever present. For example, the white masks that the characters wear have a distinct look but when they turn on you, they have a creepy quality that's hard to shake.The character design (mostly npc types) is a little repetitive but the overall look of the world and how it brings you in deserves credit and gets the job done.
We Happy Few takes place in an alternate timeline where the Axis powers won WW2 and made the people of Wellington Welles surrender their children as a peace offering. This is treated with the appropriate gravity with most to all of the characters being unable to process their grief or accept how events unfolded and how they chose to handle the fallout. The citizens are required to take JOY, a pill that puts you in euphoric state and makes you hallucinate that the surrounding world is this colourful paradise. The world continues to fall apart around them but they can't tell the difference. If there's an aspect of this game that is exemplary, its the story and how it unfolds for our 3 protagonists. What the people are dealing with in this universe is beyond horrifying when you step back and consider if this were what actually happened. Its a dystopian tale that has some familiar undertones depending on how you read the unfolding story. But while We Happy Few can be uneven, with every scene we get with our characters, the depth of the depravity the Wellies have sunken into gets deeper and deeper. It amplifies how grave circumstances can be when people choose to wilfully ignore the truth and just frame what's going on so they can be among those happy few.
If you're playing a game that's driven through its narrative, character development is key. I've already talked about the environment that Arthur, Sally and Ollie are thrown into but how they are shaped by it and where it leads them to is captivating. I preferred playing as each one of them for different reasons but they all had moments where my jaw dropped and I couldn't help but think if I would have acted in a similar fashion (ranging from heroism to despicable cowardice). All 3 characters have their respective talents and weaknesses but their problems are very difficult and even haunting. Even despite this taking place in an alternate reality, their individual journeys felt real and all too possible. I think they also do a good job incorporating the moral ambiguity of the situation into how the characters behave. They all have skeletons in their closets and carry shame for their actions. This helped ground them and make them more human. When each of their arcs wrapped up, I had vocal reactions in both a positive and negative manner and to elicit those feelings is a sign the game accomplished its goal.
I could just keep showering We Happy Few with my adoration but you have to take the good with the bad. The gameplay is lacklustre compared to the story and development. We Happy Few has more than its share of bugs even this long after its been released. The campaign will freeze more than a few times and graphical glitches are common. The npc characters are rabid to get after the main characters and once you tip them off, it becomes almost impossible to get away (let alone most missions will drop you close to the start so if you die unexpectedly, there's a lot of backtracking). Their dialogue is super repetitive as well. The combat is the bare bones of what it should be and feels thrown together instead of being developed properly. They set the bar high with the other aspects and the gameplay can't live up to that kind of promise between the bugs and the dissatisfying systems.
This game is particularly hard to review. There is so much about it that's not only good but genuinely inspired. The story, the character development, the atmosphere and style are FANTASTIC. It got to me emotionally at points on both sides of the spectrum and its rare to have something through this medium do that. But unless you're a diehard fan, the buggy gameplay, the wonky combat, long load times and frustrating npcs are a little much to take and pretty frustrating. Its a flawed product but its the rare one that I'll revisit because of what it gets right. I might be going out on a limb but with all the crappy videogame-film adaptations we have gotten, I think a movie based in this universe would be really intriguing (it felt very cinematic). So it comes in more at a 7.5/10, the positives help it shine anyway and its a "joyful" experience to play We Happy Few. I'd recommend picking it up on sale instead of full price and trying to be patient, there's an involving cautionary tale here.
