high technology. Bad life. This is how the cyberpunk genre is briefly described. However, game developers pay more attention only to the first part of the description. Bloober Team, meanwhile, decided to focus on the latter.
The eighties of the twentieth century left a huge legacy in popular culture, which even today, no, no, yes, the creators of movies, music and games resort to. However, the merit in the appearance of the heritage does not only fall on the shoulders of the people who created it, but also on the technologies that made the appearance of this heritage possible. It was in the 80s that technologies began to massively penetrate both the life of a simple layman and the life of various film and music companies. It is thanks to technology that the eighties are associated with certain music and movies. It was thanks to the fact that technology penetrated the life of the layman, as well as the mood that prevailed in the United States in those years, that the Cyberpunk genre arose.
Since its inception, many books, movies, and games have been released. Among all the works, there were both those that became cult and brought something of their own to the genre, and works that took only external cyberpunk paraphernalia and gave only one show. And somewhere at the intersection of these two categories is The Observer, which launched in 2017, thanks to the efforts of developers at the Bloober Team studio.
Mechanics
In terms of mechanics, the project is a “walking simulator”. For most of the game, the player, disguised as the protagonist, Detective Daniel Lazarsky, walks around the game world, talking to characters and reading notes. In a smaller part, the player can search for access codes to digital panels, scan evidence at crime scenes (*for organic and electronic evidence, there is its own type of scanner) and travel through the residual memories of the dead. The hero can do the latter, thanks to the presence of special implants in him and in the victims.
However, although our protagonist is a detective, the game itself is not a detective. The player does not need to compare the testimonies of the characters, unravel the motives of the alleged criminals and the like. All things that the player will encounter on his way are simple and linear, and the main character draws the necessary conclusions on his own. The player just travels from point to point and scans the desired items, if any. Only when they are connected to corpses, the developers give the player various puzzles and diversify the gaming experience.
There is a controversial mechanic in the game that requires the use of a certain drug – antizin. Their presence is dictated by the setting in which the game takes place. In theory, this mechanic was supposed to become an analogue of cartridges in Resident Evil – a means for the survival of the protagonist. But in reality, it only causes inconvenience.
First of all, there is a lot of this anti-zine, if you go exclusively according to the plot, and the player, in principle, does not experience a shortage. And secondly, if you do not follow the plot and save it, then a long antizine “non-acceptance” does not threaten the player in any way. The image will be covered with noise, and the text of the magazine will be difficult to distinguish – all these are the consequences of the lack of the proper amount of drug in the blood of the protagonist. The receiving antizin mechanic only removes a small amount of noise from the image and silences the computer voice that constantly says, “Insufficient sync level, take antizin!”
However, all the game mechanics, apart from entertaining the player, are aimed at immersing the player in the game world and giving this world a proper atmosphere. The latter, as in the case of his latest project Layers of Fear, can be eaten with a spoon.
peace and atmosphere
At the beginning of the game, the world in which the game takes place is briefly described to us. In the middle of the 21st century, increases have ceased to be something new, incomprehensible and unusual. Cybernetic augmentations and implants have become part of the surrounding reality and part of the person himself. Along with new opportunities, however, new diseases have emerged. One of these diseases was a nanophage that affects only the digital part of a person. The only way to contain the disease was to eliminate the infected.
The epidemic has shattered the already precarious balance between the two parts of the country. As a result, there was a military conflict, as a result of which power in the country passed into the hands of the Chiron Corporation, whose strike forces liquidated those who disagreed with the new ruling regime. One of the corporation’s instruments were the Watchers, detectives with special augmentations that allowed them to peer into other people’s minds and read their memories.
From the point of view of the world device, Observer is not something original. There are a couple of moments that give the game world a certain charm, but no more. The same can be said for the main story. You can’t expect incredible revelations from him, but thanks to the setting, the writers managed to write several plot events in him, forcing you to move forward and wait for the outcome of all the action.
Although the story and setting are nothing but original, the game has one element that sets Observer apart from other cyberpunk games: the setting. The player will be thrown into the slums, the most disadvantaged and impoverished citizens of the city.
During the first conversation with the janitor, the game makes it clear exactly which side of cyberpunk the player will have to deal with. Elegant and bright magnifications cannot be expected here. This is not the place for corporations or gangs of thugs. Here, implants do not seem like something fashionable, stylish, youthful and something natural. The implants are the opposite here: they look as repulsive as possible, they disfigure a person and do not “restore” him to his former form.
Walking through the house, talking to its inhabitants, finding the dead and living their last memories, you are more and more immersed in an atmosphere of hopelessness and despair. With any of the residents of the house there is no conversation, there is always a feeling: “something is wrong with this person.” Someone fell into paranoia, someone got addicted to drugs, for the return of the implants to the boss, someone went crazy for “cleaning”, and someone timidly waits for an early exit.
The last known cyberpunk games – Deus Ex, Cloudpunk, Cyberpunk 2077, The Ascent – didn’t immerse the player so much in the social background of the setting. There were moments in these games that showed that life in the cyberpunk world is “not sugar”, but these moments did not form a central part of the game. The Observer focuses on the social background of this world. And the more you study the game, the more fully this background is revealed to you.
Last but not least, the artists should be thanked for the revelation of this world and the atmosphere of utter hopelessness. It is thanks to his work that the action scene makes a depressing impression, and the moments of being in other people’s minds are remembered. The episodes themselves can be compared to falling into a dream: incomprehensible images, abrupt and unexpected changes in location. Something similar happened in The Evil Within, only in The Observer this experience is given in a much greater concentration.
It should be noted that the study of the game world does not go against the main story. The detective part fits well into the concept of the “walking simulator” genre, although it is in the game and is limited only to conversations and a couple of hacking mini-games.
system redux
In 2020, an updated edition of the game was released, in which the developers added the ability to hack some digital panels, added various investigations, redesigned the graphics component, and redesigned the stealth mechanics. And it is the System Redux edition that you should pay attention to. The new stories only immerse you more in the game world and complement its environment, the hacking mechanics bring a bit of variety to the game, and thanks to the redesigned graphic component, it has become a little easier to live in the world of Observer.
The original had some fast-paced scenes with lots of visual effects. In the case of the original The Observer, the warning about a possible epileptic seizure was more relevant than ever. There are no such hard moments for the brain and the eyes in the System Redux edition.
Also, there is less darkness in System Redux. In the original, even in the corridors and apartments of the house, you had to turn on the night vision device (*NVD) to navigate in space. In the System Redux edition, NVD should only be enabled in basements. This change had a positive impact on the perception of the game world. You do not get tired of the dark, dim lighting only participates in creating the right atmosphere and does not suffocate the player in his arms.
Reworked stealth has become more playable. In the original, during the stealth segments, the dynamics of events sank. He felt as if he was trapped in some kind of swamp. Observer gameplay is already slow, but in the case of the stealth segments, this slowness turned into slow. The complexity of the stealth segments was overestimated, so they had to stay for a long time. In System Redux, the difficulty and behavior of enemies have been adjusted to make them much faster.
Leave
Observer is a game that every fan of the cyberpunk genre should be familiar with. Not because the game brings something new and fresh to the genre, but because it shows a touch of cyberpunk that often remains on the sidelines. In combination “High technology. Low life”, the authors focused on the second part, showing us all the horror and all the futility of the life of the smallest in the world of augmentations and implants. It is this facet of cyberpunk that an ordinary person who is not attached to the corporate or power elite will see.
That is all. Thanks for your attention.
video version:
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Source: IXBT
