When I played the Early Access version of We Happy Few on Xbox One, I quickly realized it was the game I didn’t know I needed. The first-person adventure title takes you deep within a dystopian English city known as Wellington Wells, where everyone’s actions and motivations are fueled by the drugs they take- drugs which also make them overly (a.k.a., creepily) cheerful.
The challenge then becomes attempting to blend in with this backwards society while not arousing anyone’s suspicious, lest the citizens of Wellington Wells forcefully turn you into one of them. The game encourages stealth but also combat when necessary- anything it takes in order to escape.
We Happy Few is dark in nature, but not for the obvious reason that Wellington Wells is a city full of pill-poppers. There’s a mature story at its foundation, and the game proposes interesting (and quite honestly, terrifying) ideas about uniformity and conformity.
Compulsion Games notes that We Happy Few is “highly replayable”, because once you die, you’re dead. There’s no coming back to your previous save. Each death is designed to teach players something new about how to survive in the city; and each time allows you to play through using different characters.
My familiarity with (and affinity for) Compulsion Games came with the release of the studio’s first title Contrast (2013), a puzzle platformer with uniquely noir aesthetics, which allowed players to move between the 3D world and the 2D world of shadows. It was one of the first games I played on PlayStation 4, and with each playthrough, the dark whimsy in the game felt somewhat addicting.
We Happy Few is an exciting departure, but it’s great to see it still holds some of the same dark elements and undertones that made Contrast great, while taking it a few steps further.
Gearbox Publishing announced a full release of We Happy Few will be coming next year on April 18, 2018 for a full retail price of $60. It will be available for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC.
Tori is originally from Rapture but now she lives in Chicago. She enjoys open world RPGs, a good narrative-driven game, and is probably the only person still watching The Walking Dead.