We Happy Few first appeared at E3 a couple of years back, with Compulsion Games asking us to try and help them create their game by donating to their Kickstarter page. I was so caught up in the trailer that I immediately did so, and now it seems I made the right call.
For those of you who may not be aware, We Happy Few is set in an alternative UK during the 1960’s where people take a medicine called Joy, which helps erase their memories of the war and live a joyful and complacent life. If you refuse to take your Joy then you are a downer and often get your head caved in by the Bobbies (the police force in the game).
We Happy Few is currently available as a Game Preview title on the Xbox One and Early Access through Steam, and with the additions introduced in the The Maidenhold Update, it may now be worth picking up.
Before the release of the newest update to the game, it was bulky and really difficult to play. With no clear map, no storyline and with survival being one of the biggest factors of the game, I struggled with it and since just left it to stand on my hard-drive as I awaited the newest update.
The Maidenholm Update changes the way you play this game considerably. With the option to turn permadeath off and also to tone down the survival aspect of this game, it is slowly but surely becoming more playable with each update. We now have a working map and quest icons which make progressing through the game easier and the bugs and glitches that were a huge factor have now been toned down.
But even with this monster update, if you are thinking that this game is nearly finished, then you couldn’t be more wrong. The game still has huge flaws in the way it plays, such as lack of tutorial and no storyline to progress through (they have been promised in a later update). I found myself either getting lost in the massive open world or being killed by the NPC’s for reasons I’m not even sure of. But the biggest problem I faced was even though they have toned down the survival element quite substantially, it still feels like I am banging my head against a brick wall as my character succumbs to infection or dies of thirst (and that is why I am going to hell!).
The biggest addition to We Happy Few is the new area of Maidenholm where we can actually start to find out a little bit of lore about the interesting world that they have developed for us. We begin to find out why Joy was introduced and also why people wear masks wherever they go. It also offers brand new quests, new safe houses and new weapons to use in-game.
We Happy Few is starting to look like a great game, and if you want to help support them, then I would highly recommend grabbing this in its early stages. But it is a still a long way off being finished yet, which is worth remembering before you decide to pick it up.
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