We Were Here Tomorrow Review

We’ve been big fans of the We Were Here series since day one. The medieval-setting of the original was a short taster, and with each new entry the setting has gotten more sci-fi, the puzzles even more brain melting, and the strain on our co-op buddies pushed to the max. With We Were Here Tomorrow, Total Mayhem games have pushed the setting even further into the future, the puzzles are somehow even more brain melting, but thankfully the strain holds out as we work our way through some of the most enjoyable trials in the series yet.

For those unfamiliar with the series, We Were Here is an asynchronous co-op puzzle game. Two players must work together to solve puzzles to progress, and oftentimes they are separated by the environment, with each person having only half of the solution. Clear communication, teamwork, and sometimes a little bit of luck is required to get anywhere. I’ve played through the entire series with MPV Graham, and we certainly have a leg up in some respect seeing as we’ve been BFF’s for 40 years so know each other’s thought pattern quite well, though it will absolutely suit anyone duo who are willing to put a little time and effort in to succeed.

In Tomorrow, we see some truly maddening puzzle designs, with MC Escher-like rooms that twist and turn on each other, or gravitational walls that see us walking up and over each other as often as alongside. Early on things can be a bit simpler than they appear, and the onboarding difficulty feels about right for new or returning players. 

New to the series are individual tools picked up early that join us for a good chunk of the game. One player gets a rubber leash, used to pull distant levers or hit switches, while the other gets a gun that fires out a solid block of Bismuth-looking material that can be used as a key or a platform to jump up on. These are used creatively throughout, and allow the already expanded puzzles to really widen, in some cases literally. 

That’s not to say we haven’t been stumped more than a few times though even on the regular style puzzles, with certain ones later on really testing not just our individual logic but our abilities to communicate clear directions and instructions.

And that is one of the key tenants of WWH. There is no matchmaking (I shudder to think how poorly that’d go), but you 100% need a second player to even load into the game, and it needs to be someone who you can rely on to relay information clearly and timely. There is no hint system here either, so if you get stuck it boils down to either Asking Jeeves (R.I.P In Peace) (and I can’t stress enough to have this as a last resort as it really is satisfying to solve them between players with no outside help or rule breaking) or sucking it up and trying over and over again.

And try them over and over we have, with the only real sticking points coming from tiredness as it approaches another late hour after a days work. The core gameplay remains as addictive as ever, and we always found ourselves just wanting to see what the next room held before we stopped for the evening, before realising that we’d actually solved most of the room so we might as well finish it off and see what the next room hol…yeah, it’s easy to lose track of time when we’re on a roll.

It could be argued that – seeing as this is the series’ fifth mainline entry – some of the puzzles can feel a bit rinse and repeat both in this game and from past entries, but that honestly only reared its head in very few areas and certainly didn’t diminish our enjoyment. If anything, it’s a testament to Total Mayhem’s designers that we have had so much variety across the series as it is, so a few small bits of repetition are easily overlooked.

Conclusion

Overall, We Were Here Tomorrow is another solidly designed co-op puzzle title that tests brain power, skill, and teamwork. It’s a lot of fun to work as a team to solve the tests, and adds enough new ideas to the mix to make it well worth a look even if you’ve beaten the rest of the series.