The Invincible Review- The power of the cloud
I've started 2024 with the mindset to experience more story-driven games... mostly because I've grown weary of the normal formulas of open world AAA games. I've experienced soaring highs and abyssal lows in my search for those hidden gems that I may have missed, but who could have predicted the unlikely hero that The Invincible turned out to be.
Grabbed as an extra to Indika, because it was published by the same 11Bit studios and seemed interesting, it turned out to be one of the better uninformed choices I've made.
The Invincible is a story driven first person adventure that puts you in the shoes of a biologist on a planet she knows nothing about and on a quest she's forgotten. You are not given much to go on, and to be completely honest, that's the hardest bit of the game.
The start is a little bit slow. I had to push myself a little bit to go through the first 30-45 minutes mainly due to the many push-button activities that seemed to me like busywork, which also serve as the game's tutorial. Due to an absence of initial intrigue, you'll have to go on faith for a little bit during the games debut, but trust me when I say, it's worth it!
So you find yourself on a strange planet but with a straightforward objective: Find the rest of your research team. Easy as cake, one might think... wrong! The lines of communication have been cut and you must follow in the expedition team's footsteps to find out what caused the strange cutoff.
Things are rather unremarkable until you find the first member of your squad, which for me resulted in a massive spike in interest due to the intriguing circumstances of his situation.
Spoiler: Finding the first crewmate
Finding Doctor Krauta in a state of stupor is extremely disturbing as one expects to either find him dead or fully functional. Instead, he is unresponsive and babbling like someone who does not fully understand what is happening. It is later explained why that is, but I wont go into this here. It is also here where you are faced with your first choice, of weather to dilly-dally around and make sure Krauta gets home safe, or to go straight on and leave Krauta for later.
It is unclear to me if saving Marit is a possibility if one moves quickly enough, but perhaps one day I will find out.
It is here you are faced with your first choice, the first of many: do you make sure you explore everything and close all loops properly, or do you hurry along hoping to find as many of the scientists as soon as possible? Your choice; only be prepared to face the consequences.
The next hour is similar in vibe: find the next crewmember and assess their situation, all the while making decisions and worrying if you'll find the others in time. It is also this section that introduces you to most of your arsenal: a tracker, a telescope and a metal detector serve as primary orientation and plot points. Nothing fancy, gets the job done.
I was thoroughly impressed by the game's intelligence in one of these sequences. You are travelling with a flying drone and have to rappel down a ravine. It turns out the rope is not quite long enough and Yasna (name of the biologist character you control) is faced with too high a jump for comfort. I was extremely impressed when the game suggested we use the flying drone to assist us in getting down safely, mostly because games usually don't do this for some reason. They'd rather make the protagonist fall from a great height and either break a leg or miraculously escape.
All throughout the story I found myself not arguing against the choices and situations I've been put in, even though despairing over ridiculous situations is one of my favorite pastimes.
The pace of the game also felt expertly crafted, with high-interest things often being just far enough away to feel prepared for, but just close enough to not get boring. Things flow naturally and the game does not overstay its welcome.
It helps that the conclusion of the story reveals the full weight of your choices thus far, with radically distinct endings in both outcome and circumstances. I felt everything I did in the past 8 hours has brought me here, in this moment, and all I had to do was finish the job. I will say that I expected a bit of a fuller conclusion to the story, as it felt a little bit like too large of a "to be continued" for me to be entirely satisfied with (similar in vibe to Kingdom Come: Deliverance but vastly less aggravating). I wanted a little bit more, but what is here is carefully weighed and expertly crafted.
The voice acting is also great, with full coverage of written lines spoken out loud, in what amounts to a not-modest number of lines. There is plenty of well-acted English VA (despite the fact the studio, Starward Industries, is Polish in origin and staff).
All that remains to touch on are the graphics and a few story spoilers. The graphics are very Unreal Engine in fidelity (meaning extremely good looking while also not being very demanding). The landscapes are spectacular and diverse and the rest of the 3-D objects are also fantastically realized. Describing graphics via words is hard and pointless, so I'll just pop over a few snaps, along with the ones you've already seen of course.
Story Spoilers overall
I was quite impressed by the sheer power the cloud of flies, and felt the futility of active engagement every time I tried it.
I got two endings in the main game: with the main one containing the arrival of The Invincible, followed by the unexpected credit roll. It was this ending that I felt left me a little bit dissatisfied, as I very much wanted to see what they were about... after all, the game is named after that ship!
The second ending I got was the one where you launch the nukes against the cloud, and boy did that feel ominous. Perfectly crafted, down to the last minute detail.
It was a good dillema to be confronted with: what do you do when you meet an adversary that eliminates indiscriminately and is vastly superior to you? Do you retreat? Do you engage? One can only speculate.
Conclusion
I truly believe this game deserves way more attention than it received and found it a nearly perfect experience. It does not plan to do much, but it achieves that outstanding balance between a good psychological story and peak immersive-ness, all the while delivering outstanding visuals at a rapid pace. I truly could not ask for more, and encourage you to experience the joy I did. Do no more research, do not read the spoilers. Spend the 25 bucks to sponsor a small developer doing things right.