Review of The Invincible – impressive retrofuturistic atompunk

Polish game studio Starward Industries is one of those that was born in recent years by splitting off developers from larger companies. Thanks to this, you will find veterans who took part in games like The Witcher 3 or Dying Light. According to them, their goal is to create games that, although they fall into the AAA category in terms of volume and price, are clearly among the best AAA games in their processing and quality. This concept has been successfully demonstrated in the past by other relatively small teams and games such as Hellblade. If you’ve played either of the two public demos, you’ll probably already know that the developers have largely succeeded in their ambitions: The Invincible looks stunning, and visiting the game’s stylized world will leave a big impression on you.

• Platform: PS5 (review version), XSX|S, PC
• Publication date: 06/11/2023
• Manufacturer: Starward Industries (Poland)
• Genre: adventure game
• Czech localization: No
• Multiplayer: No
• Download data: 40 GB
• Game time: 7+ hours
• Price: CZK 799 (pairs)

Not everything is everywhere for us

The plot is based on the famous science fiction book “Invincible” by Polish writer Stanislaw Lem. This is a fairly iconic novel, having been published back in 1964, but nevertheless already dealing with the ideas of very advanced technologies (revealing exactly what they are would spoil the surprise of the game’s plot for someone who has not read the book). Considering the time of the book’s creation, the whole story is shrouded in a stylish cloak of retrofuturism and atompunk, which the creators of the video game adhere to very consistently not only in the general design of all devices and costumes, but also in the design. For example, in the manner of speech of the characters. The result is an impressive immersion in the atmosphere of the “golden age of fantasy”, when the future of mankind seemed entirely devoted to traveling through space and discovering new things. But fans of the book should not worry about being able to predict the course of the entire game – the developers have significantly adjusted the plot and built it non-linearly, with many options for the player to choose throughout the entire passage.

Your character’s name is Jasna (probably Jasna in Czech, or “Jasnenka”, if you prefer), and she works as an astrobiologist on the six-person crew of the research spacecraft Dragonfly. At the end of the current quest, your return to Earth is unexpectedly interrupted by an order to explore the seemingly deserted planet Regis III, which your commander clearly doesn’t tell you everything about. Soon after landing on the surface, the situation becomes dramatically more complicated: crew members disappear and are subject to mysterious phenomena. You’ll have to choose between saving their lives and delving deeper into the strange ruins you’ll discover on the planet. The story flows well, the revelations are impressive, and the choices you face are often very difficult. However, above all this looms the central mystery of the planet, which is superbly designed and the quest to solve it will completely absorb you.

Your return to Earth is interrupted by orders to explore a desert planet.

You practically see the entire game from your own eyes, with events constantly happening around you, just like in Half-Life. But at the same time, with every progress or decision in the story you will unlock comic book summary windows in the game menu, which I found strange at first, but I really appreciated it while playing as it helps to keep a good overview of events, especially when the story is not told in places linearly (flashbacks, etc. are also used). While the first half of the game completely blew me away and I greedily devoured each new discovery and revelation like few games do, in the second half it seemed to me that the game sort of abandoned the most interesting theme (unraveling the mystery of the planet) in favor of a relatively conventional drama on the topic human strife between two “factions” trying to unravel the mystery of the planet. The game also has several possible endings, but none of them feel as exciting as the game’s magnificent opening hours.

Story game for thoughtful people

From a gaming perspective, The Invincible is a purebred adventure game that many would probably classify as a walking simulator. In other words, there is no action in the traditional sense of the word. The content of the game is a walk (and ride on a transporter) on the surface of the planet, exploring interesting locations and choosing dialogue options when interacting with other crew members. You don’t even have an inventory in the classic sense of the word, but you have several useful tools at your disposal: from an interactive map to a human signal detector and a metal detector that works like an X-ray, to help you visualize metal elements under the sand or rocks of the planet, which will turn out to be very important not only for discovering hidden ruins, but also for survival in some situations.

From a gameplay perspective, The Invincible is pure adventure.

One thing I struggled with several times during the game’s roughly seven hours (the game is impressively narrative-driven, but relatively shorter and sold for less) is navigation. Once you get a vehicle, the game opens up a relatively larger or in places more fragmented environment, but doesn’t always sufficiently indicate on the map exactly where you need to go or where – of course, this isn’t helped by the fact that what, no matter how stylish and As impressive as the game’s design is, you often move through a relative wasteland of rocks and sand. Moreover, the problem is aggravated by the fact that the car is not going so fast, and Jasna herself, of course, is going even slower. You can also sprint, but Jasnah quickly gets out of breath and slows down, which after a while begins to get on your nerves, both functionally and sonically. This is by no means a very common or game-breaking issue, but it will likely leave you sighing a few times.

I played the game on PlayStation 5 and visually it worked and looked great most of the time. If you think the planet is gray or uninteresting, just wait until the time of day or weather changes (within the story). What was unfortunately a little annoying (maybe this was already fixed at the time of release) was the sound – the volume ratio of some characters’ voice acting doesn’t make much sense (a distant character is louder than a closer one, or the voice disappears in the music, etc. .) and in some places there were unnatural sound distortions or loss of sound, apparently caused by some technical problem. But if you have subtitles turned on, they will always help you understand what each character is saying. Overall, I was captivated by the game with its interesting storyline and very stylish graphics, so I bit through its flaws and completed it in one sitting.