Not everything everywhere is for us. This is the main motto of the game The Invincible by Starward Industries, based on a science fiction novel by Stanisław Lem. The game sets you in the shoes of Dr. Yasna, who wakes up on a deserted planet with no way to contact others and has to figure out what happened to herself, her colleagues and who are the real friends and foes in this mystery.

Dr. Yasna is an astrobiologist, a member of a team of scientists who were returning home from a long mission in space. On their way, they made a stop near a planet called Regis III, which has all the prerequisites to have life forms on its surface, yet is completely deserted. The team of scientists is from a faction named the Commonwealth and the leader of the scientific expedition Novik receives information that the flagship of an opposing faction Alliance - called The Invincible - is heading to Regis III. So the team aims to survey the planet and find anything valuable for research before the arrival of The Invincible. Yasna is supposed to stay on the ship with Novik because as a biologist, she would not have much work to do on a dead planet. But suddenly, she wakes up on Regis III, with no memories of how she got there, her radio receiver broken and no other researchers in sight. Her notebook shows that she previously knew where her colleagues set up a camp, so after a bit of exploration, she manages to find her way to the camp. There she finds broken equipment, a malfunctioning robot, and one of the researchers, who is however completely unresponsive, in a stuporous state of unknown cause. Yasna manages to repair her receiver, so she gets in contact with Novik, who stayed in the ship in orbit of Regis III because of his leg injury. He can’t give Yasna any answers, only that he sent her to the planet to look for the members of the expedition after he lost contact with them. So your goal playing as Yasna is to find the three remaining members of the team, recover your own memories, and figure out who or what could cause all the damage to the equipment. On top of all that, you will quickly discover strange metallic structures that may or may not be connected with everything that is going on.

The mystery of the whole situation quickly pulled me in and even though the start of the game is rather slow, the storytelling kept me engaged, because for every answer I discovered, more questions popped up, and the longer I played, the more interesting the game got. The game is designed to make you think, but not in the conventional way of other games, where you would focus your brain capacity on puzzles. Rather the game deals with many philosophical topics like the interaction between different forms of life, human relation to artificial intelligence, and our approach to ecosystems of other planets. Through Yasnas’ voice you can discuss these topics and mysteries around you with Novik (who stays in contact via radio throughout the whole story) and your view will shape the ending of the story.

Let me tell you a  story

Outside of dialogues, the gameplay mechanics are rather limited, The Invincible definitely deserves the stamp of a “Walking simulator” or an interactive story. So if you want a game full of action, space exploration, or blasting futuristic guns, this is simply not it. Movement around the map is pretty linear, there are some alternative paths or open areas for a bit of exploration, but the game is strongly focused on the narrative and does not let you stray from that. However, the narrative is a true piece of art. The story is thought-provoking and is presented to you via two extremely talented voice actors and stunning visuals. The desert panoramas of Regis III with large celestial bodies above your head make traversing the locations very enjoyable and the great lightning and particle effects make everything look even better. The man-made objects are made in an intriguing style that developers describe as atompunk. Furniture on spaceships looks “retro”, like from the sixties, and in places like the bridge of the ship, where you would expect some very advanced technology, you find CRT monitors and manual switches. It took me a while to get used to the idea of space-faring humanity stuck with technology from the sixties and the tools Yasna uses always rather reminded me of toys from my childhood, more than a research apparatus. But it’s a cool nod to the era when the original book was written and it definitely makes the game look unique.

Another very cool art element is the included comic book, which you can find in the menu and access it every time when the game is paused. It starts with just a couple of panels that make the introduction to the story. But as you play, the comic book expands, following both your actions and the historical data you find throughout the game. If you can’t finish the game in one sitting, the comic book serves as a great way to remind you what happened in the previous session. The comic book is also integrated straight into the game in a very original way. Throughout your journey on Regis III you will encounter various robots that use slides as a memory device and those slides are later implemented into the comic book.

I want to hear it all

My biggest peeve with the game is cutting out of dialogues if you explore too quickly. If you discover an item or area that Yasna and Novik want to talk about and then progress too quickly to the next item, the characters will suddenly stop discussing one topic mid-sentence and start with another. So the game basically forced me to stop whenever someone started talking and I would only continue when the dialogue finished, making sure that I heard the whole thing. On my second playthrough, when I was speedrunning to collect the remaining achievements, Novik sometimes encouraged me to return to a certain topic. So the game has some mechanics that make sure you don’t miss the most important story bits, but still, it’s only a partial solution and it definitely broke my immersion in the game when some dialogues suddenly stopped without a conclusion.

My other issue with the game was the speed of movement (or rather lack of it) of the main character. Regis III has lower gravity than Earth, so Yasna is able to carry the bodies of her co-workers, yet she is not able to run for more than a few meters. And her run is not much faster than her walk, so it’s almost not worth it to listen to her wheezing after a few seconds. In combination with the previously mentioned issue that forces you to stop for every dialogue, the pace of the first part of the game is unnecessarily slow. But the situation improves in the second half of the game, where you get access to a rover that will allow you to drive quickly over long distances.

And again, and again,  and again…?

On the first playthrough, if you don’t rush and try to find as much as possible about what exactly happened on Regis III, it takes about eight hours to reach the first ending. The game has 11 endings (to my knowledge) in total, but some offer just minor variations, and most of them are unlockable by reloading the last game save and choosing different dialogue options. The final dialogue is quite long, which is fine for the first playthrough because it summarizes all your findings, but when unlocking all the endings it becomes rather boring with no ability to skip the already known passages. So the replay value of the game is quite low, but that’s to be expected from this genre. The game is mostly very linear, there is only one point in the middle of the game, which can significantly influence your options at the end, so after two playthroughs you experience everything the game has to offer. But the story is so captivating and well-written that I felt fully satisfied with the first playthrough and the second one was only to collect the remaining achievements.

As I already mentioned, The Invincible is rather an interactive story than a game. If you enjoy titles like Firewatch or Vanishing of Ethan Carter where the experience is centered around narration rather than sophisticated game mechanics, then you will most probably find The Invincible enjoyable. Although, even compared to these titles The Invincible felt to me more like a book, with many things left to your imagination and all the endings open for interpretation. I can imagine that some people would like a more definitive ending, but in a lot of ways The Invincible is a story of humanity and evolution and there are no definitive answers to these topics. And I think that’s exactly what captivated me about The Invincible – it managed to capture the feeling of the best sci-fi books, which make you ponder about the direction in which the human race can move and it lets your imagination run freely.  It makes me want to grab a book.