I have always been wary of too much surveillance and data collection, be it from companies, advertisers, or governments, so it was a pleasant surprise to find Orwell sitting in my Steam inbox for Christmas. While my main concern has always been the fine line between personal privacy and collected information, Orwell takes it a step further to consider the limits of freedom of speech and misinterpretation. What happens when things said in jest are taken seriously? Or threats made in the heat of the moment considered concrete plans of action?
At the onset, you sign up as a foreign participant in the Orwell Test Phase run by The Nation. Your goal is to sift through large amounts of information regarding individuals to find important clues that could either lead to more pertinent information or satisfy a query from The Nation about their plans. You then pass on what you deem relevant to a supervisor, Symes, who interprets the data chunks as he sees fit. The Nation believes surveillance in this manner through Orwell guarantees national security, and implores you to find more about a case suspect, Cassandra Watergate. She has a known arrest record and was last seen leaving the Freedom Plaza where a bomb was set off, which killed and injured civilians. Symes hypothesizes that she might be involved, as he “does not believe in coincidences.”
In the Orwell system interface, you have three types of information available: websites, voice calls and text messages, and remote access of personal computers or smart phones. In order to access call transcriptions or text messages, you must first locate a phone number to track. And since each computer or smart phone has a unique registered ID with the government, once it is known, you may remotely connect to them and browse their data. As you survey the varying forms of information, transmittable snippets are highlighted and you can click and drag them over to the Orwell mainframe for Symes to access. Sending certain key data to Orwell can unlock other pieces of information, such as submitting a character’s online alias to uncover their social media websites.
Thus, the flow of the entire game hinges squarely on data you choose to transfer to Orwell. You can paint the suspects as saints, or display their angry, emotional outbursts. You can withhold what you deem irrelevant, or submit every single food, color, and activity preference—the options are endless. Except, there are certain triggers that must be pulled to proceed to the next day. However, I have found wide variations in Symes’ reactions, as well as how each day plays out depending on the information submitted prior to the trigger. And I must be clear, there is a ton of information you can sift through and send, and since Symes may not always know the implications and context of each, he occasionally jumps to quick conclusions.
Soon, you uncover a wide web of individuals who are related in some way to this terrorist issue at hand, and must work to unravel who is really behind it and who the innocent parties really are—and until the very end, I was still completely on the fence as to who I wanted to trust, let alone convince Symes to trust. As my inner alliance with each character bounced around while I uncovered damning and redeeming details, I was astounded at how believable each character was, with their own voice, style, and motivations that I could see in people I know. These are normal everyday people. With their normal everyday lives. But The Nation sees something to pick on. The Nation believes there’s more beneath the surface. The Nation wants absolute safety and elimination of all possible threats.
I find it difficult to say more about the story progression without giving away key details, but rest assured it was an extremely satisfying journey that could branch in multiple ways. Perhaps, if I had done things a little differently, the outcome would diverge. Someone wouldn’t have been arrested. Someone wouldn’t have died. And yet, playing as someone who is completely removed from the situation at hand, it’s easy to compartmentalize. Easy to explain inconveniences away. Easy to forget that these are real lives you could be destroying. Easy to realize that this could happen in real life with any government and its citizens. It’s almost a little too plausible in the near future to feel comfortable with such an arrangement, and Orwell makes an extremely authentic case to not head in this direction (to me, at least)—or have governments already taken steps toward this?
Political musings aside, my main complaint lies with the inability to speed things up in Orwell. You can skip dialog from Symes by clicking the left mouse button, but for voice call transcriptions or text messages, you have to sit and let them slowly play out in their due time, which adds unnecessary dead time when replaying. I understand that in some cases, a trigger is necessary, and you can always look at something else while it happens, but more often than not, I found myself impatiently staring or wandering off in the meantime. For a four hour game, it’s probably less of a deterrent for many compared to myself, especially considering how different the outcomes can vary depending on what you choose to convey and the fact that there are four possible endings. Even though certain choices seem to converge into a single consequence at times, Orwell does an excellent job of keeping the blindfold on if you’re simply happy to experience what it offers without nitpicking the details.
Aurally, the game has a pervasive background tune that switches and intensifies as revelations occur. Initially, it reflects the nature of Orwell with a regimented steady beat and a slightly unsettling melody. As the plot escalates with each day, so does the music accordingly to match the moments of dread, contemplation, and discovery that enhance the entire experience. Additionally, the voice acting of all the characters merits recognition, as they express the varied and conflicting emotions the story elicits impressively.
As a game based in a maybe-now-or-near-future reality, the developers have taken a polygonal approach to the landscape and character images, which avoid comparison to the current world without sacrificing facial expressiveness. The Orwell graphical user interface that the player operates to view all the data is clean and crisp, and appropriate icons make it easy to navigate this pseudo-new digital world. Having to log out of the Orwell interface at the end of the work day in order to proceed—even though there is nothing waiting for you after you log off but to log back in—is just another exemplary way the game uses minor quirks to enhance immersion.
With such a compelling tale and well-crafted characters, it’s easy to look past the fact that gameplay solely consists of absorbing information and choosing to pass certain things on. Though there are no random puzzles to solve, the main puzzle for the player is clear: are you willing to let a government do this to its citizens? Where are the boundaries of freedom of speech and privacy in such an interconnected world? Is it more important to guarantee the safety of all by being paranoid, or to ensure that everyone has the right to be innocent until proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt? If asking difficult questions and finding a way to your own answers sounds like a good time, Orwell is the game for you.
