Transient Review

In the distant future an apocalyptic level event has occurred and humanity now lives in an enclosed citadel called Dome City Providence. You are Randolph Carter, a member of a hacking group called ODIN. It is during one of your hacking jobs that your group stumbles upon something that will cause you to question your own sanity and your very own existence. In this first person perspective game, Transient, you will navigate through both the physical world as well as several different virtual worlds. As you progress through the game layers of truth and your past will be revealed, along with secrets best kept hidden.

Your most important tool throughout the game will be something called PHI (perception heightening implant), it will allow you to see the unseen as well as collect additional information on objects within the game. You’ll also have to master the art of hacking into different systems. The hacking mechanic is a mini-game where you are trying to move from node to node within a system, you will have a time limit, and you will face challenges where you will have to crack pass-codes to keep going. 

I stumbled upon this game as a result of playing another game developed by Stormling Studios called Conarium, and I decided that another Lovecraftian game from these developers was worth my time. This is one of those games that I don’t really know how I feel after completing it. There were definitely good parts, but there were also portions of the game that seemed rushed or not completely polished. I definitely put in over 5 hours into the game from start to finish so there’s definitely a good amount of game to play, but in the end I just didn’t get the level of satisfaction I was hoping for in the end. I think my main grip is that the story of the world around you and your character’s personal story sometimes didn’t gel. It felt like there were two stories running in parallel of each other and many times I felt like the writer got bored with one of the stories and glossed over stuff, and at different times it felt like the writer had several “oh wait they need to know this, this, and this” and rushed critical information that should have better fleshed out the story, but in the end just leaves the player scratching their head. 

In the end as much as I would love to tell you to get this game or not get this game I think you have to read over all the information on the digital platform of choice, mine is Steam, and you’re going to have to make the call if you’re going to try to take this game for a spin, or if you think that maybe you’ll just look for another game to spend time playing.