TRANSIENT Review for Steam

For those of you who are lovecraft fans, Transient, by developer Stormling Studios and publisher Iceberg Interactive, combines two intriguing themes, cyberpunk and lovecraft, under the detective genre. The game has an effective dystopian world to be immersed in. When I saw the trailer, I was really hyped up and expected a great deal from it. The graphics and ambience were just perfect for a horror/detective game. It looked like a well-polished game with an interesting story. As you might also expect, the main character in an existentialist cyberpunk setting would be a black hat hacker. The whole surrounding makes you think about how you will be involved in the game-world. As soon as you start the game, there is a prologue which acts as the hook. Being born over and over again, living many lifetimes, and talking with a powerful being were some of the ideas introduced right at the beginning.

Check Out the Transient Trailer:

You get to play as Carter, a hacker who is part of a small hacker group. The game is set in three distinct worlds. One is the virtual world where people can go into using a special transplant called PHI. Everyone in the real world transitioned into this virtual world where the promise is living in a healthy, sociable and happy world (doesn’t sound too bad in quarantine). When you are in the virtual world you are in danger of getting hacked and most of the story revolves around it.

The second world is the real world where you get to see people with VR devices. The last one is the dream-world. Unlike the other hackers, Carter uses special drugs to enter a dream-world where he sees visions of the future civilization in ruins. He tries to discover what happens to his team as each one of them gets hacked and dies one by one. You, as the player, try to decipher what you see in the dream-world and search for the reason why your team-members are getting lost.

You jump between worlds as the story moves ahead. Each chapter would include a type of mini-puzzle to solve. Sometimes it is about hacking, sometimes it is just a regular puzzle on a board. I have to say, the puzzles were a bit too easy. They could be solved in less than 2 minutes which was a bit disappointing. Also, the puzzles were not connected with each other – each puzzle had its own type so there weren’t any development of the skill either. I believe it might be due to the shortness of the game. 3 hours to experience a story with a deep lore has its ups and downs. Obviously, it was hard to keep track of the terms in itself.

Each dialogue introduces something new to the story without giving enough explanations. I assume it is due to the lovecraft fantasy, you are not supposed to give away everything and let the player explore surroundings to make sense of what is happening. But it might not necessarily be the case because the story is pretty short compared to a regular gaming of the universe.

The interaction with the gameworld had minor problems, too. The gameplay is rough around the edges. There were a couple of bugs in Transient, and I had to restart the game because of it. While walking through the tight corridors, I could easily get stuck and that would hinder my movement. Also some of the animations were not smooth, you can see its movement frame by frame, which makes the game look cheap.

As someone who isn’t familiar with Lovecraft’s work, despite the minor issues, the theme was on point. I was creeped out by the artwork, and felt small and insignificant in the game world. When I was in the real world, I mostly traversed through small and tight spaces so that I could feel claustrophobic. The underground labs of the “founding fathers” on the other hand were very gothic, you could feel small compared to the gigantic statues – it speaks for the game’s theme more than I can say. The soundtrack fits the detective theme of the game. But it lacks the horror genre’s musical trait. The non-diegetic music was usually calm and did not reflect the suspense the game was building. Because music is one of the most important parts of creating suspense, an effective usage of music could have improved the immersiveness of the game. I don’t think it was used to a fuller extent in this game. I am disappointed for not hopping on my chair at certain moments – especially the ending. It is the most important part in the game, just like in any theatre play. It is the moment most of the audience will base their judgement/rating on. Since this game does not have much replayability, the ending will be the last thing a player will see about the game, I would highly encourage the re-visit of the cinematic. 

I believe the most important part is to polish the game. Even controlling the character should be enjoyable so that exploring doesn’t become a dull experience. I do not have much experience in creating a game in Unreal Engine, however I do know how default moving settings feel. The game seems to have high expectations from itself. It was produced by a Turkish Indie Studio so it is understandable to have these small mistakes at first. Right now, it is mediocre in its ambition, and the game needs a lot more polishing. As I mentioned before, I found the content inadequate too, there is a lot to expand on.

My Score: 6/10

Transient is available on Steam. The game will also available on Xbox and PlayStation in 2021.

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