Paradise Lost (2021)

Paradise lost is an interesting walking simulator. I picked it up as a research for a design project I worked on. The brief of the project was high tech post apocalyptic tribalism aesthetic. And this game plot and setting fit quite well into that.

There is a fascination that I have with media and games that are envisioning the disturbing alternative history in which nazis would prevail. How much further could their war technology advance? What horrible crazy plan could they come up with next? Wolfesntein: The new order blew my mind in this regard because I never really taught about it that much. But while Wolfenstein envisions crazy robots and battlefields that sometimes can look like something straight from the Terminator movie, Paradise lost goes in other direction. While nazi high technology looks similar and could be straight from the Wolfenstein series, there is no action, no bullets flying around and nobody chases you. In fact there is just you, exploring the facilities as some kind of archeologist. Everything is intact, as everyone have just disappeared in a single moment, leaving all the lights on.

It is a serene experience that focuses purely on the exploration of alternative history where nazis would build a huge city underground where they could shelter and thrive. The magic lays in the uncovering of all the beautiful and horrendous details of the world that nazis built for themselves.

There is also a tribal part that I mentioned at the beginning. But I am not going to spoil you that. Uncover it yourself.

This game was gifted to me and I wanted to give it a try....and did.

I lasted about an hour and I've never moved so slow in a game in my entire life. I eventually got frustrated at spending my time moving from one end of a hallway to another and decided that regardless of how pretty it is, it's not worth it.

I'll look up the plot and move along.

~David.

I just bought a Switch and wanted to check out an Unreal engine game on the handheld and narrative focused games are my thing, so this just ticked all the boxes for a purchase.

The Good

Excellent concept – essentially in this timeline the Nazi’s did an Andrew Ryan– instead of under the sea, they went underground, and your character is following their footsteps in their abandoned world putting together pieces what went down.

Atmospheric and well-designed levels. Which is good as you spend a lot of time just taking it all in.

The bad

Very slow movement that makes it frustrating.

As with Bioshock there is what I suspect the developers designed to be an end-game twist. I think it was meant to be a twist however I guessed it in the opening scene, so the arc of the story ended up being predictable.

The other…

This is an entry in the “walking simulator” genre. There is little interactivity nor are there anything that I could classify as “puzzles”. I like this genre; but buyer beware you will be doing less compared your average game even in the same first-person adventure genre..