This killer immersive sim goes against genre classic prey

Imagine if I told you there was a new immersive simulation – think prey, dishonored, etc. – but created by a team of just two people. And then imagine if I told you really damn good. And now stop imagining because it’s obviously real. It would be a weird intro if it wasn’t. Ctrl alt ego is a PC game about being an unbound ego able to jump between various electronic items aboard a giant space station and it consumed my week.

I want the elephant of space to be confirmed as early as possible so we can get down to the nitty gritty: no, this game doesn’t see pretty. His art is functional, rarely attractive, and no screenshot will sell the game. But that matters for about thirteen seconds, and then it’s back to business with enjoying the game itself. And it’s a damn good game.

They are, as I said, a kind of non-physical entity capable of hopping back and forth between certain electronic devices on a space station. This includes a host of stationary items, from communicative CAT closets and wall-mounted monitors to security cameras and destructive surveillance DAD bots. But crucially, there are also a number of mobile robots aboard the ship, most notably one called Bug 22.

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This article originally appeared on Buried Treasure, a site that hunts for excellent unknown games from undiscovered developers. You can support the project via his Patreon.

Bug 22 is your constant companion (well, vehicle, actually) throughout the game, which can be “printed” at any number of print stations and gain an ever-increasing set of abilities as you progress. The range of these abilities is extraordinary, they can be unlocked in any order, and will dramatically change how you tackle the game’s challenges. You could hand Bug a gun right away and take a much more aggressive approach to get past the station’s angry security forces. Or you can choose the ability to levitate and as such to reach otherwise impossible passages and materials. Or you could choose Shift and have some sort of telekinetic ability to move objects around. Or you could…

It’s absolutely amazing how different almost every situation is Ctrl alt ego can be tackled based on the skills you’ve unlocked and really just your personal preferences. The game is designed to be experimented with, and techniques that feel like they could break the game have most likely been considered and incorporated. That means you have this Prey-like the freedom to improvise and the incredible satisfaction of discovering that your crazy approach can work!

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This is all the more interesting for the way you are not Mistake 22. It’s just a useful vehicle, but it can also be completely abandoned for long distances when hopping between other mobile bots like the dog-like PUPsspend a resource called Ego to take on defensive bots like DADs and later mobile murder machines called MUMs, and explore vast areas simply by skipping your consciousness.

There is SO much detail here, with each possessed machine offering unique messages, all sorts of stories from everyone who talks to you through the CAT closets, stacks of objectives to complete in any order in each of the game’s massive sections, by all means improvise, all with a phenomenal degree of freedom.

It is puzzling that something so free, so open, should be the work of two people, totally. I to have I managed to break it through some fancy actions a few times, but most of the time I was just delighted to find out that my crazy plan worked. It also features the main immersive sim elements: the part where a great plan fails and you struggle to survive. That’s a pleasure Ctrl alt ego Rarely do I want to reload in moments like this, but scramble and try to improvise my way out of a sudden and overwhelming jam.

There is So many elements I want to tell you about, little details that blew me away, discoveries about how to overcome situations, even core elements of the game, but I have to discover them all for myself and you should too. This is a wonderful game to just immerse yourself in, intentionally obscure at first, while learning your own systems.

It’s also a gigantic Game, at least a solid 20 hours, which is constantly expanding and becoming more and more interesting. I haven’t finished it yet and can’t wait to see what it has to offer in its final hours. That’s remarkably good and, more importantly, would still be considered remarkably good if it came from a 30-person team. Honestly, if Arkane doesn’t give its creators a job right away, then I don’t understand how the universe works.

This is already in my GOTY list and I’m desperately hoping it breaks through, gets wider attention and isn’t unfairly held back by its more primitive graphics. You will be overwhelmed. And for only twenty dollars along with an hour-long demoYou can try too!

This article originally appeared on Buried Treasurea site dedicated to highlighting awesome unknown games by awesome unknown indies. So please consider helping the Patreon here.