Liberated Review

An electric eye full

‘You will never be completely free from risk if you’re free. The only time you can be free from risk is when you’re in prison.’

In 2013, Edward Snowden’s name became renowned the world over after he released classified NSA documents about global surveillance and started a serious conversation about governments tracking their citizens’ data and invading their privacy. He made the above statement when talking to The Last Week Tonight in 2015, and while Snowden’s acts may be slightly forgotten, his sentiment around governments monitoring their own citizen’s everyday lives is still a relevant one – and one which Liberated wants to tackle. 

Set in the near future (2034?) the American government is tracking people’s lives digitally, following a policy to keep people’ safe’. The new dynamic was fazed in due to a 9/11-like act of terrorism with the government’s response mantra being around if you are an ordinary, law-abiding member of society, you have nothing to fear with being tracked. 

It’s certainly an interesting premise, one which is constantly being tackled given the current state of affairs with how most of us will happily allow companies to access our data, for example, or with some people wearing specific paint at protests to stop facial recognition software. We’re in a constant battle between technology allowing a certain ease of living, without it monitoring our every move. Liberated’s world takes these themes to the far fetched and dystopic but is also creepily recognisable with its citizen merit points scheme working similarly to China’s social credit system.  

Question everything

Atomic Wolf’s Liberated wants to constantly question these aspects of our digital lives, what their purpose is and what kind of future we could/are voluntarily subjecting ourselves to. While it’s a bit clumsy in its execution, it’s by no means fruitless.

In this graphic novel inspired format, you’ll play as a few characters across four different ‘comic books’ with the idea being you’ll experience different perspectives. From a newly recruited Freedom Fighter (reminiscent of Anonymous) displeased with society to a chief police officer eager to end the rebel groups’ cause, Liberated wants to highlight there is no one side to any story. 

While I enjoyed the idea of seeing things from different angles, the game presents them in a similar way with each character feeling quite po-faced and difficult to relate to. There are points where Liberated wants you to emotionally invest in these characters, and yet, none of them are particularly relatable. The writing rarely gives any of the protagonists to breathe.

However, in spite of the story’s morose delivery, there’s enough intrigue throughout with the game’s willingness to indulge in government conspiracies and Bad Politicians. Liberated’s world is believable, and it’s enough to keep you invested in the story, even if the shooting and platforming get in the way.

Mantle that bin

Infiltrating police stations or rebel bases is pretty easy according to Liberated as you generally just have to run from left to right, occasionally jumping over dustbins or building debris. While the platforming does the job, it’s often clunky and a bit awkward with the character on several occasions just looking the wrong way. 

Liberated displays itself as a bit of a stealth game with the option to hide inside alcoves dotted around the levels yet I rarely did, as there seemed to be little benefit. 

Most of the time, the guards take too long to move within killing reach, so I found it’s generally quicker to just shoot them. There’s also the fact the game has very clear spawn points for enemies as often it will plop one behind you, so there’s no real incentive to hide and wait for the opportunity to take them out. 

You’ll start to remember where exactly the enemies will be generated from because, if you’re anything like me, you’ll die a lot. 

It only takes a few hits for enemies to gun you down and the aiming is so awkward and slow, that it can be hard to actually react to where enemies are shooting from. The Switch’s controls don’t help, either, as using the right JoyCon’s analogue stick to aim is painful (sometimes literally). 

Liberated’s redeeming feature, though, is its art style. The cut scenes essentially end up being a slightly animated, noir graphic novel with every panel beautifully done.  But, when it comes to the actual game, the visuals take a bit of a hit as it looks quite blocky and the nice attention to detail on the comic strips isn’t lost, just lessened. Although, that’s mainly for the character, enemies and the scenery they interact with as the foreground and background generally keep the cut scene’s quality.

Push X to do the thing

There’s some fascinating, often bizarre, choices Atomic Wolf has implemented here as certain sections will have Quick Time Events which can kill your character for good – which moves you onto the next chapter – or even the occasional switch to a first-person point of view for a couple of cut scenes.

Liberated is a peculiar game. While it explores some interesting concepts around surveillance, people’s privacy and how societies react to terrorism, I’m not sure any of its ideas are helped by being a video game. If anything, it has an adverse effect, actively drawing away from the team’s artistic skills and world-building. 

And yet, there was one part of this game which did stick with me and it will for a long time. 

At the start of the second chapter, there’s a 30-second scene where a black man has been arrested and interrogated by the police. The man is beaten brutally to the point where he ends up dying, and it’s an overt move to make the player invested in the characters. Playing this game during a point in time where – like most outside of America – our news feeds are full of the rebellions taking place, even a game which portrays the systemic oppression of black people in America as clumsily as Liberated did, I think that scene is what I’ll remember it for. 

[Reviewed on Nintendo Switch]