Few Indeed

WE HAPPY FEW is a mess of crafting, jogging, and stealth with a strong script.

- Tyler Wilde

The districts of We Happy Few’s alternate history UK are divided into two categories. In the wild gardens, rejects loiter in decayed streets, while in the middle-class neighborhoods, well-dressed citizens pop a drug called Joy, which reduces cognition to cheerful hellos. Your job is to blend in with the dispossessed and the addicted, which is an exciting concept for a survival game—and in this case, a bore, buoyed only by the writing and acting.

We Happy Few does succeed at making me feel self-conscious—a thematic victory and a funny send-up of absurd player behaviors like hopping everywhere—but there is no intricate social engineering challenge here, just tiring routines. As you progress, you’ll unlock fast travel points and abilities which allow you to ignore many of the rules, letting you sprint around or go out after curfew without issue. Learning to craft Sunshine, a drug which imitates the outward effects of Joy without the withdrawal symptoms (which turn every Joy-dependant person near you hostile), is also vital.