We're not going to lie to you: we hadn't heard of Virginia until today. But according to every article that we've read, the 505 Games published first-person thriller is one to watch – and it's coming to the PlayStation 4 starting 22nd September. As pointed out by the press release, the game's been inspired by genre-bending 90s shows like Twin Peaks and The X-Files, and it promises to fuse sci-fi, horror, and murder mystery.
"Set in the last days of summer 1992, Virginia is an original detective noir story, where players investigate the disappearance of Lucas Fairfax, a young boy in the rural town of Kingdom, Virginia, through the eyes of a graduate FBI agent assigned to her first case," the blurb reads. "As a rookie detective, you're paired with an experienced partner whom your superiors instruct you to keep a watchful eye on."
The overview continues: "As the story progresses, your partner's trust in you will be tested to breaking point, all while your investigation takes on an increasingly sinister and supernatural turn, as the list of suspects grows ever larger and stranger." Sounds fantastic, doesn't it? It's probably worth mentioning at this point that 505 Games has become a bit of a publishing powerhouse of late – it's picking up some fascinating projects.
Comments 8
This looks promising - I've also wanted to solve the murder of a Nintendo Mii.
Seriously though, Sept is looking expensive for me now.
Sounds right up my street, hopefully its well written and well acted or it'll be indie bin.
@Rudy_Manchego Yeah, the art style is... Awful.
Heads up: there's a demo on Steam. I'm downloading it now.
So, uh, I tried the demo. The game, based on the short demo, is really unimpressive. So, first off, this is nothing like X Files or Twin Peaks. You seem to play as an FBI agent, but you don't do much of anything other than interact with the few non-static objects in your environment. It's basically a walking simulator that lacks the stunning beauty of Everybody Has Gone to the Rapture or the somewhat clever imbedded narrative of Gone Home. Based on the demo, you click on a few things, the Mii people walk around for a few minutes, then you're shuffled off to the next scene. It ends on an event that I think is supposed to be shocking but is so abrupt that it just winds up being comical.
And yes, for a walking simulator, this game is inexcusably ugly. Environments lack detail (the first scene takes place in a house, and all the pictures frames appear to have the same weird brown squiggles in them), the character models are... well, you can see them. The lighting is super weird. When my character moved into shadowy areas, the screen would take on this weird blue tint.
Unless this demo is just completely unindicative of the final product, this is going to be mediocre at best.
I too shall make a game entirely out of microsoft clip art.
@sonicmeerkat LOL
@Ralizah Good heads up. It sounded very X Files and Twin Peak-ish but that little snippet is a bit worrying. I can safely lower my hype levels
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