The Invincible — a walking simulator with environmental storytelling that forces you to grapple with the ethical implications of humanity’s right to discovery
“Not everything everywhere is for us”
A game that poses philosophical questions of what humanity’s limitations should be in terms of knowledge, The Invincible forces the player to encounter the ethics and consequences. Created by Polish video game developer 11 Bit Studios, The Invincible is based off Stanisław Lem’s 1963 sci-fic novel of the same name, where the game’s tagline, “Not everything everywhere is for us” also originates. That tagline alone sparked my desire to play this game, and after completing it yesterday, despite its flaws, I’m glad I dove into the questions this game presents.
The storytelling
The game is for the most part, a walking simulator, where dialogue and environmental storytelling play a large part in the narrative. You are biologist Dr. Yasna, you wake up with no memory of how you arrived where you did, or where your crew is. It’s not long, however, before you figure out you’re on a planet called Regis III, and you begin to unravel its secrets, as well as the fate of your crew.
The way the story unravels for you is something I immediately fell in love with; you actively put pieces together using your environment, as well as “slides” that are scattered throughout, a type of photograph that exists in this universe, that inform you of events that have occurred on this desolate planet, whether moments ago or much longer. Dr. Yasna herself slowly has her memory triggered, as well, as you acknowledge different parts of your environment, the option of her “reporting” on things causing her to comment out loud on them, whether to herself or her “astrogator,” the mission’s commander who you soon regain contact with.
When Dr. Yasna begins piecing her memory back together, the game introduces another aspect of the game’s storytelling: a comic that updates throughout the game, based on your choices and discoveries. It fleshes out a timeline of events, and is accessible at all times, something that is greatly useful if you need a reminder of how things have unraveled so far or even just a simplification to help pinpoint key events that have occurred.
While the comics are an ingenuous method of storytelling, I feel they also shine a spotlight on a glaring negligence in the game; the slides you find throughout that help to tell the story, informing you of things that have occurred that may not even be documented in the comic, are not permanent fixtures. That is, despite appearing to be collectibles, once you unequip them, they’re gone. A major aspect of the game’s storytelling is inaccessible after one look, instead of becoming a building collection for the player to go back to throughout the game, just like the comics. Most games make all collectibles accessible to the player, especially ones that contribute to the story, so I find this to be a baffling choice on the devs’ part.
What makes it even more perplexing, is that when I bought the game, it was the same day as the “Voyager Update” which boasted some quality-of-life improvements, as well as more slides to be found throughout the environment. The slides are clearly something the developers intended to be an important aspect of the game and are aware that players enjoy them; the idea that such a big oversight is left in the game makes no sense to me. Of course, the game was released in November of last year, and they clearly are still rolling out large updates, so there is plenty of time and opportunity for further quality-of-life updates, which I can only hope will implement a change in this.
The gameplay and mechanics
Aside from the inclusion of more slides, the Voyager Update included improvements in gameplay that I can only be grateful that I got to experience from the get-go. They included the option of camera changing for operation of the rover, a later-game discovery that is extremely useful and fun, as well as easy to operate. Of course, there is the camera view of within the rover; while it maintains an immersive environment, it is far too difficult for the player to actually control. I mostly kept with the third-person view of the rover, which makes the use of it a delight when I can imagine that with the restriction of only the interior camera view made it a much less enjoyable experience.
Another gameplay mechanic improvement that the update provided was further opportunities for Dr. Yasna to run, the ability made available in more areas, and faster. I have to say, I don’t even want to know what it was like before this update, because even with the improvements, it was a bit tortuous at times. Given that the game is a walking simulator on a vast planet, the limitations of the running mechanic are a bit frustrating. Yasna does not always respond to the command, as I’m gathering is intentional on the devs’ part, and when she does, she is rarely fast and has abysmal stamina for an astronaut. The discovery of the rover honestly comes as a relief due to this; I think the game can afford to have a more forgiving simulation of walking for the sake of the player and their sanity.
For a walking simulator, the game also struggles to take into account the need of direction. There are no waypoints which is a fine choice for this game; it helps to maintain immersion, and you can see into the distance quite clearly. However, the map you are provided within your journal, is scarce in its labeling, and sometimes you are wandering in every which direction, hoping you’ll stumble upon your location. The game starts with you utilizing things such as trackers that ping and show you where to follow, but that soon becomes obsolete for a long time due to plot reasons, and your only tool is a poor excuse for a map. Objectives are clear, but their locations and the path to them, not so much.
Luckily, despite the vastness of the planet, the game is not open-world and has linear direction, which doesn’t allow you to remain lost for too long. The only benefit of the almost useless map is that it consequently results in further exploration and discovery; maybe that’s intentional, but I think a more user-friendly map is still ideal in a walking simulator like this.
Otherwise, the rest of the game’s mechanics are quite simple and easy to use; you can easily focus on objects in order to report on them, interaction is easy and made clear, and advancement through the story continues on smoothly for the most part even with the hinderance of the map and slow movement of the protagonist.
The environment
While much of the story is told through what you can find throughout the world, the environment does a tremendous job of immersing the player. The world around you is gorgeous, planets hanging in the sky, sandy mountains and cliffs surrounding you. The first-person perspective bringing the world that much closer to you.
It even made me understand the interior camera view of the rover, as you attempt to traverse through a storm the immersion is incredible; the water hitting the windshield, the thunder in your ears, the rain pounding against the metal of the vehicle.
With such a beautiful environment, I ran the game on all “Epic” settings for the graphics as my laptop far surpassed the recommended requirements for running the game. Unfortunately, I couldn’t quite enjoy the 60 FPS the game could run on, as I encountered more framerate stutter than I would have liked. It didn’t hinder the experience too much, but such a gorgeous game can be held back by an issue like this, the immersion broken by the reminder that you’re playing a game susceptible to technical problems like any other.
Maybe the issue could have been solved with some lowered settings, but I’m stubborn and the view was just too breathtaking to give up.
The narrative and dialogue
The narrative of this game is its true saving grace in terms of some of the shortcomings mentioned above. I am a lover of sci-fi first, a critic of gameplay second, so a story that poses philosophical questions wrapped in science-fiction is like holding bacon in front of a dog. Ethical choices, things out of our control, impossible ideas told only in books and movies and games just like this; all of it brings me to the table. As someone whose first impactful experience with a video game was Life is Strange, I’m always looking for that type of experience again, and The Invincible isn’t far off from the type of ideas it brings as well as what it expects of the player.
The story is largely told through the environment, as mentioned earlier, as well as dialogue. You are often in contact with Novik, your astrogator; you are presented with dialogue choices that influence the direction of conversation, what you will do as Yasna when presented with difficult choices, as well as what you learn about what’s happening around you.
Some dialogue options, however, are less impactful than others. Sometimes this is ideal; you have the option to say one of three things, all of which you may desire to say as they’re useful, and Yasna will end up starting with what you chose, and then continue with the rest of the options. Other times, it feels like there is a lack of variable consequence, and when a game boasts being choice-based, you want to feel the impact of that. Because there are definitive, influential options throughout, however, it recovers well from that setback.
The dialogue does have a major setback, unfortunately, that’s outside of its choice-based aspect. Due to the fact that the game touts its 11 possible endings, you are of course as the player expected to go back and try to obtain these, see different outcomes and experiences. It’s quite a tantalizing prospect, but I found that there is a glaring issue: you can only skip some dialogue. I’m not sure why it’s such a selective option, but much of the dialogue you are forced to listen to, again and again. This makes what you would hope to be a much quicker process to experience something new, tiresome and quickly kills that spark of curiosity. I only managed to force myself through two extra endings before I called it quits.
This appears to be the developers’ simply getting in their own way; there’s no reason to force a player to listen to long monologues of dialogue over and over again when you wish for them to explore more of what your game offers. Considering its a mechanic that does exist, it’s nonsensical that it’s only available in certain instances, those instances appearing to be arbitrarily chosen. I would hope that in a future update this could be another quality-of-life improvement, as I found myself instead looking up a video to see what the other endings could be, instead of experiencing them all for myself as I’m sure the devs hoped for.
The “11 possible endings”
Of course, this brings us to the “11 possible endings” the game advertises; there aren’t actually 11 possible endings. I’d say there’s about half of that; different variables and choices lead you to the exact same outcome, with the exact same cinematic and consequence. Just because the choices that led you there were different, unfortunately does not actually make the ending different.
I actually think it would be smart to advertise the number of endings more truthfully, because 11 possible endings is a bit overwhelming to a player, especially when we usually want to experience as many as we can. And of course, as mentioned earlier, the devs step on their own toes when it comes to being able to enjoy and experience those other endings properly.
Choice-based games can sometimes become far too bloated with choice and variable; they can minimize the impact and story they’re trying to deliver. Sometimes something more definitive can be more impactful. Not to bring up Life is Strange again, but having two possible endings was the most impactful experience I’ve ever had in a choice-based game, and it made it all feel that it truly mattered.
With this, the endings feel a bit lackluster, the consequences less provoking in a story that poses such thoughtful questions.
The overall conclusion
All in all, despite some obvious flaws and 11 Bit Studios’ issue of getting in its own way, I thought this was a great game. I truly enjoyed it, the way the story was told and unraveled, the questions it posed, and the choices the player is faced with. It’s a sci-fi, philophical dilemma told through a beautiful environment.
One thing that I loved was Dr. Yasna singing a song quietly to herself at some parts of the game; it’s featured in the game’s launch trailer, and perfectly captures the experience and Yasna’s journey. I think it’s the cherry on top of a slightly messy, but structurally sound cake.
I give The Invincible 4 out of 5 stars, for a story well told.
The Invincible can be found on PC and all consoles.
