I have no idea how Observer slipped under my radar for so long.
The game launched on PS4, Xbox One, PC, MacOS, and Linux last year, and I’d honestly never heard of it until an invitation to demo the just-announced Switch version of the game landed in my inbox just prior to PAX.
Observer is a beautiful first-person cyberpunk horror title that simply oozes atmosphere. In the game, you’ll play as Dan Lazarski (voiced by Rutger Hauer himself), “an elite neural detective known as an Observer, and part of a corporate-funded police unit whose purpose is to hack and invade suspects’ minds. In this future, anything you think, feel, or remember can be used against you in a court of law.” The game is set in 2084 after a deadly pandemic called the Nanophage, and a massive war following that. Basically, everything (everything) is horrible, and in this future society will do whatever it can to escape from itself, from drugs, to VR, to neural implants, and more.
As I began the demo, a Bloober team employee filled me in on just where I was in the game’s story. I’d received a call from my estranged son, asking for me to come to a giant apartment building (think a smaller version of one of Dredd‘s megacities) as he was in some sort of trouble. You arrive, the building is locked down, there are dead and dying people everywhere, and it’s up to you to piece things together.
I take control of Lazarski and quickly begin soaking in my surroundings. I’m playing Observer on a Nintendo Switch in docked mode with separated Joy-Cons, and it’s immediately striking to me just how good this game looks. There are many, many beautiful Switch titles, but typically when I think of the console’s best looking games I think of things like Mario or Zelda or some insanely beautiful side-scrolling indie title – games that are undoubtedly breathtaking, but that use clever, often simpler artstyles as to not draw attention to the platform’s lack of power. In Observer, while certain items or objects in the environment can look a little low resolution, the dark, realistic looking title awed me with its use of particles, smooth performance, and uncomfortably claustrophobic atmosphere. I walked through the halls of the apartment building slowly, not because I was scared, but because I wanted to take in as much of this surprising, amazing world as I possibly could. Well, and because I was a little scared.
I came across a dying man, who either refuses or simply can’t tell me what’s going on or what happened to him. Lazarski says something along the lines of “Don’t worry, I have other ways to find out what’s happening here,” as he takes out a cable and literally plugs himself into the dying man. I mutter a “Holy shit,” under my breath because this game is fucking awesome.
Lazarski, being the neural detective that he is, has the ability to ‘mindjack’ into various characters throughout the game. In the demo, mindjacking the fallen apartment dweller took me back into the character’s memories, helping me learn that he wasn’t a great person (though in this timeline, I’d imagine that there aren’t many of those around), and showing me a little of how things in the building began to fall apart. I’m not sure if it was because of the dying character in front of me, or just the limitations of the mindjacking technology, but things here were ‘glitchy’ as hell, and this led to some of the demo’s freakiest moments. Objects in the environment would suddenly have a ‘snowy’ overlay (think an old TV when tuned to a channel that doesn’t exist) or disappear entirely, suddenly Lazarski would teleport to a completely different location, or a pathway would go on seemingly forever until I turned around to reveal a new location entirely. When mindjacking, the game feels ‘unstable’, and the effect of not knowing what’s real, what’s not, and just when everything in front of you may change without warning is oddly unsettling. A section of the demo also had me stuck in a ‘loop’ – the hallway I was in would reset whenever I went through to the next room, and I eventually figured out that the televisions in the area would show me the next, correct door that I needed to walk through in order to continue. The game’s official website notes that ” As you hack into the unstable minds of criminals and victims to look for clues, you will relive their darkest fears, forcing you to question your own reality — and your sanity,” I can’t even imagine what I’d be in for if the demo continued beyond where it did.
The Switch version of the game isn’t just a straight port either, as Bloober Team notes that they’ve also taken advantage of some of the console’s unique properties. In the demo, I could open and close doors with just the flick of a Joy-Con, and I was also told that the Switch version is being developed with HD Rumble in mind. When playing in portable mode, you’ll also be able to use the console’s touchscreen to help some some of the game’s puzzles.
Overall, I was super impressed with what I saw of Observer on Nintendo Switch. The Switch Version of the game is currently in active development, and while I’ll be excited to see this version of the game when it releases, Observer was simply so cool and so fresh that there’s no way that I can wait that long.
Observer is available now on PS4, Xbox One, PC, MacOS, and Linux. For expanded thoughts, be sure to listen to they PAX West Day 2 episode of Geekscape Games (here). I also had an opportunity to interview a Bloober Team member about the game and the development of the Switch version, so be sure to look for that on the Geekscape Games feed in the coming days.