Originally Kickstarted in 2015, We Happy Few is finally available on home consoles two years after its initial early access release. Unfortunately, even with the collective ideas of an enthusiastic gaming community behind it, We Happy Few doesn’t quite manage to live up to expectations.
Compulsion Games has created a truly incredible world with its stylish and unique take on alternate-history 1960’s England. The story covers three characters across three separate acts, with each overlapping the other at various points. The general plot centres around a drug called Joy, which makes people forget about the past and puts them into a permanently positive frame of mind. The town of Wellington Wells looks spectacular (very much like a cross between Bioshock‘s Rapture and Columbia, with a touch of Fable thrown in), especially when under the psychedelic effects of Joy, although it takes a fair few hours to reach that point.
Players are able to explore the island at will, meeting new characters, completing side quests, earning skill points and abilities, looting items, all that stuff. Fans of Fallout and Bioshock will be right at home here, as it’s safe to say that the influence of both is more than clear. It’s such a shame then, that despite a fantastic setting, intriguing story and what should be solid gameplay, We Happy Few suffers from some particularly frustrating technical difficulties.
The warning signs appear almost immediately, as the framerate dips and stutters throughout the opening cutscene. There are only so many notes you can take before you give up, but within the first couple of hours alone we encountered NPCs repeating the same lines over and over again, quest markers and waypoints not disappearing after completion, button presses not registering, inconsistent targeting, and enemies either not reacting or actually overreacting to your actions. Although to the game’s credit, we got a good laugh out of accidentally bottling a policeman who proceeded to endlessly jump up and down on the spot until we eventually slapped on a slepeerhold to put him out of his misery.
Early indications suggested this could have been one of 2018’s landmark releases, but in its current state We Happy Few is sadly not quite the game that it could or should have been. Without the issues this would have been at least an 8 out of 10, but it might be wise to wait until the problems are solved before spending your pennies.
WE HAPPY FEW / DEVELOPER: COMPULSION GAMES / PUBLISHER: GEARBOX / PLATFORM: PC, PLAYSTATION 4, XBOX ONE (REVIEWED) / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
