God damn. The game went through so many iterations, with an almost change in entire concept more than once. So, this was originally teased as a dystopian, BioShock-esque, drug-addled nightmare set in Britain. Steampunk to a degree, to boot. What we actually got in the early access period was a Survival-Game with procedually generated aspects. People were no doubt unhappy with this change from concept to execution. So, they went back to the drawing board...Admirable. To try and get back to the roots of the original concept, they did sort of change it back as they got closer to the next versions of the game. However then they partnered with a publisher, the cost of the game changed, the scope of the project changed. And frankly, it went from an indie game, from a development studio which really doesn't have the experience of a triple A title developer, to the cost and expectation of a Triple A game. What we got was true to the concept. But the execution is still flawed. Filled with bugs. Permformance issues are rampant even on my build (Not the best, but I think a Ryzen 1700 at 4Ghz, a GTX 1080 and 16GB of RAM, with the game installed on an SSD, should be enough to maintain 60FPS at 1080p on a game like this, with the quality of assets it uses, with the complexity of gameplay it has in terms of mechanics and A.I. function.....The game just shouldn't perform this badly, even after all the patches) and frankly the specification expectations are just wrong, in every sense of the word, given how badly the game performs. This game promised atmosphere, mystery and suburban horrors. Frankly, the art is given no justice in comparison to the actual product. I cannot recommend this less, because the minimum is 1 stars. I'd give it 0 if possible. It is the worst kickstarter baby I've ever played.
The game in itself is a good game...But I have tried all the typical things that can be done to make the game work as best as possible. But in just 31 minutes playtime it has crashed several times. The game upon first launch prompts you to activate DirectPlay to install DirectX 8.1 which is required to play the game. I am guessing the issues might stem from my hardware and setup on Windows 10 rather than just Windows 10 (Ryzen 1700 at 3.5Ghz, GTX 1080, etc) and as a result it is genuinely unplayable, which is a shame as this was a fairly good gem of an Action-Horror First/Third Person Shooter. A nice variety of weapons, enemies and environments.. And something that wasn't typical of a game from this genre or it's era of the mid-Noughties, especially not a linear based shooter, was a good reason to go through the game at least twice through the form of Moral based decisions you can make throughout the game which definitely sets a different tone in both instances, either justifies the main characters past, or vilifies him for it and it changes the ending depending on whether you made good or bad moral choices. But yeah, overall I can't play it because of the consisent crashes. A real shame. Perhaps someone will have better luck with older hardware/an older OS.
