Lovecraft and cyberpunk; two things that games seem to be obsessed with in recent years. Of course, both are technically suited to the gaming medium thanks to over the top visuals and scenarios that seem ripe for interactive entertainment, but that doesn’t mean that it’s always a match made in heaven. Transient: Extended Edition tries not only to use both of these genres but mesh them into an entertaining whole. Unfortunately for me, all we get is a passable adventure that leaves us pretty cold in the end.
Playing as Carter (I’d love to round up just how many Carter’s there have been in gaming history…), we must dig deep through minds and alternate realities in order to uncover who we are, why our friends are dying, and who (or what) is behind whatever the hell is happening. This takes the form of ambling around linear areas admiring some weird and wonderful visuals, listening to awkwardly stilted conversations, and occasionally solving some (mostly) straightforward puzzles.
The game is described as a cyberpunk horror title but I’m hard pressed to figure out where the horror is (outside of some of the acting). Even the visuals don’t get too grotesque or graphic, with it all coming across like an early era 360 title, albeit with some current gen up-spuffs in HDR, 4K, 60fps etc. In fact, the aesthetic kind of reminds me of the original F.E.A.R or Doom 3 in the hard shadow lines and over use of lighting and colours. Not necessarily a bad thing in my book, but it definitely isn’t going to wow in this day and age.
Gameplay wise things fare a little better. Played in first person, we explore the areas looking for clues and ways to progress. Being set in the far flung future, everyone including Carter has built in augmentations naturally. As an elite hacker, he has access to PHI – a kind of Arkham Asylum detective mode that turns the area around us a cyberpunk shade of blue and red, with important objects highlighted. Much like in Arkham though, the actual investigation part of this boils down to finding an object and pressing A before clicking on various areas. It’s hardly inspiring stuff, let down even more by the interface being more than a bit awkward at times. Interacting with a computer screen forces us to drag a slow mouse cursor to a button on screen, while searching one of the several dead bodies means slowly dragging a cursor over them until something highlights for us to click on, usually followed by Carter’s almost monotone Northern English accent desperately trying to evoke some emotion.
There’s a random use of physics at times too. Opening doors is a manual affair done by holding A and then swing the door with the left stick which would be fine if 90% of them didn’t open towards us, meaning without fail I opened it half way then had to step back and finish it off before I could get through. I figured this would play into some chase sequence or the like later on but alas, it seems to only serve to be a nuisance.
There were one or two puzzles that did stump me, but mainly due to being so uninteresting that I only half paid attention to what I should be doing. One late game one saw me entering the correct code over and over to no avail only to realise I had been in putting it on the wrong side thanks to a trick of perspective. My fault admittedly, but another earlier example had me running in circles with an item in my inventory that I had no idea what it was. After looking up what I was doing wrong (I was convinced my game had bugged) I found that what I had picked up was a lever and it went in a part of the scenery that was so non-descript I’m not sure I would have ever found it.
Most of this could be forgiven if there was an interesting narrative to follow but Transient also falls short here. Of course there’s conspiracy chatter, a world ending catalyst, hidden powers and mystery but it’s all delivered so po-faced and monotone that it just fails to inspire even a slight ounce of interest. There are a lot of bold claims and chat about things that clearly are meant to be of interest but without the proper history or context it all comes off a bit waffley and nonsense. The ending I got (out of three) also failed to clearly explain what I had achieved or why I should care, and I certainly don’t have any inclination to go back to see the others.
Conclusion
All in all then, I came away from Transient: Extended Edition underwhelmed entirely. What could have been an interesting mix of two popular genres ended up missing the mark on both aspects while also just being really rather boring to play. It’s short enough that people keen to give it a go won’t have to waste too much time on it, but I can think of many other titles I’d rather give my evenings up to play.
This game was reviewed based on Xbox One review code, using an Xbox Series S|X console. All of the opinions and insights here are subject to that version. Game provided by publisher.
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