We Happy Few first impressions of preview build and early access

There have been a few games that have released this week, but arguably the biggest title to release this week is We Happy Few which hit Xbox One Preview and Steam Early Access on Tuesday.

Compulsion Games, the studio working on We Happy Few is also the studio behind the puzzle-based platform game Contrast which released in 2013.

With the game being in early preview please note that this article is purely a first impression and should not be taken as a review of the game. We Happy Few has not been finished and is missing some features that will be available in the main game which is set to release in 2017 on Xbox One and PC. The platform I played on to give my impressions was Xbox One.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNwK16kC4Fk

We Happy Few is a survival game at its core, but in my opinion what separates it from other survival games it’s overall design and the attention to detail.

The prologue/introduction was so intriguing that I started reading every newspaper in the Redactor machine. This being said, the beginning area took me 30 minutes to complete when it probably should have only taken me 10 minutes. Because of the beauty and detail in that area I found myself wanting to look in every place , every corner that I could.

If you have not been able to play the game yourself you can get a sense of this area in the trailer above.

There is a back story to the game and I will describe it briefly and while I will try avoiding any spoilers (if you are someone who likes to go in completely fresh you may want to avoid reading further).

During World War 2 something happened to the timeline that caused the Nazi’s to win the war and takeover England. This caused the government to take back England by causing a catastrophic event leading to the town of Wellington Wells falling deeply into depression.

These events caused the government to take action by creating a pill they called Joy. Every citizen who took Joy then became addicted to it and government would get citizens to take Joy by using propaganda. Calling people who haven’t taken Joy, downers and having them all sent to an isolated island to starve them.

The core mechanics of We Happy Few are similar to other survival games. You control your character from a first-person perspective, explore areas, find resources and melee weapons, all while attempting to not disturb or alarm those still in their Joy induced states.

At the onset of the game you make the decision to not take your dose of Joy. You are also reminded by a co-worker that your presence is requested at a party where they have a piñata. As you make your way you see someone through a window being injected by a strange man with what you assume could be Joy.

Once you arrive at the party you’re led to help with the smashing of what you assume is the aforementioned piñata. This is where the madness begins so to speak because as it turns out that piñata is indeed a dead rat that everyone sees as a piñata due to Joy. As you begin to awaken you are sickened by the truth in front of you and everyone begins to realize you are off your Joy and accuse you of being a Downer.

You are then chased by the police, get knocked out and wake up on an isolated island inside a bunker.

That’s all for my first impressions on the preview of We Happy Few. You can pick the game up now on Xbox Game Preview or Steam Early Access. We will put a full review up when the game is complete sometime in 2017 with it’s full feature set of 3 stories and characters.

Are you going to be picking up We Happy Few? What are your first impressions like? Let us know in the comments or over on the forums.