This bit of humanity, alongside the non-linear investigation and world-building side cases, made this far and away my favorite of developer Bloober Team’s horror games. It lends credence and a little needed warmth to a world that’s almost entirely dark. Dan is an endearing, mumbling old dad, cracking lame jokes under his breath to the tenants he’s interrogating, and genuinely trying his best to help people in a shitty situation. While his performance as a sort of gravelly, tired detective feels phoned in at first, I grew to love it in the end. Each side case adds a new wrinkle to Observer’s grimey underworld, building around lore that makes it feel like a real lived-in environment.ĭan is voiced by the late Rutger Hauer. Each story features some new cyberpunk future dystopian nightmare, from body snatching, to black market organ donors, and creepy sex robots. System Redux adds 3 side cases, and those, plus the originals are all worth pursuing. Outside of some intentionally locked doors, you’re given access to most of the building early on, allowing for a good chunk of non-linear detective work. Shortly after entering the building, it goes on lockdown, leaving him no choice but to search for answers.Īs you explore the complex, you can ring doorbells and speak to the tenants, get to know the landlord, and open up a variety of side cases. After a bizarre call from his estranged son, Dan makes his way to his son’s apartment complex. Observer tells the story of Dan Lazarski, an augmented detective that can jump into the minds of suspects via microchip implants. Observer is much better at setting a mood and tone before walking you into effective, scripted jump scares.Ĭomplaints aside, this is an improved version of a game that was already promising. They don’t add anything to the horror or tension of the game at all. The stealth sequences are smoothed out quite a bit, but I’d be happier to see fail states removed from the game entirely. It still has enough unwanted Game Over screens to feel disruptive, but the fast loading on the new consoles will get you back into the action more quickly. On Xbox Series X it still has performance hitches-though now we are talking about dips below 60fps, rather than the single digit slideshows I was subjected to on PS4. Observer: System Redux is not without issue. But enough time passed, and when a remaster of the game was announced for PS5 and Xbox Series X, I decided I could wait a little longer. It’s exactly the kind of dark sci-fi setting I usually gravitate to. Observer’s world, with its blend of cyberpunk and horror, were right up my alley. The game never truly fell off of my radar though, and I always wanted to give it another shot. I didn’t stick with it long, as some awful performance issues on PS4 and frustrating stealth sequences lowered my interest enough to throw it on the backlog. I first played Observer back in 2017, a few months after it launched.
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