Urban fantasy, despite being a prominent genre often explored by the contemporary writers, never caught on in the videogame world in quite the same fashion. Cult classic
Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines, despite having been made all the way back in 2004, to this day remains one of the few widely recognizable examples of the setting mixing the imagination of canonical western fantasy with the sprawling, contemporary cities of today. Your boss is a vampire, your coworker a werewolf, and the man selling hot dogs is a half-dragon - a situation often explored in whatever books I read as a child, and yet rarely seen in videogames.
One cause for that could be how resource-intensive it is to create an interactive modern day environment by itself, more so with the addition of fantasy elements. I still recall a lot of disappointed voices lamenting
L.A. Noire's uninteractive prop-like city. Taking on contemporary era as a setting unleashes a river of expectations on the player side, and usually it is only the biggest AAA studios that dare take on the challenge.
(VtM:B actually surpassed the problem in a clever way, by picking the nighttime as the time of the action, meaning that most of the places were closed and people asleep) Adventure games however, with their linear and rigid structure, may allow themselves a lot more freedom in how they design their spaces. Limited interaction with environment is a given in the genre, and the protagonist voice saying some kind of variation of
"I have no reason to do that!" surprises and (usually) disappoints nobody.
Adventure game is a logical conclusion for any studio balancing ambitious worldbuilding with sparse resources and capabilities.
Unavowed, fully aware of that, plays to the strengths of the genre to deliver an engaging vision of alternate-reality version of contemporary New York. The game presents its story through a series of self-contained episodes connected by an overarching plot, with every new development leading to a series of revelations like a string of handkerchiefs pulled out of magician sleeve. Enormous, intricately designed world slowly reveals itself.
In a dramatic fashion, opening scenes rapidly introduce the premise of the game. The protagonist, created in an RPG-esque way through series of choices concerning the backstory of the character, joins the titular society of the Unavowed. Unavowed are a secret international organization devoted to the protection of the mundane society against supernatural threats (pretty much like a fantasy version of the Men in Black), with the ranks open to members of all backgrounds, human and non-human alike. Main objective throughout the entire game is catching the demon that possessed the protagonist before, leaving a trail of bloodshed in their wake. Most episodes lead the player to unravel intrigues weaved during the demon's rampage through the districts of New York, and then find a way to amend whatever damage or injustice is revealed.
Every mission starts with the player picking two members of the Unavowed they want to be accompanied by. Each level can be finished with any combination of the party members, with the puzzles having alternate solutions and new paths opening depending on who the player brought along. For example, while one of the team members might be able to get the code to a locked door by magically recreating a destroyed letter, another might find it out by interrogating a ghost. An unusual thing in the context of it being a point-and-click game is not just how the puzzles might be resolved in many different ways, but also how the player is often set against some kind of moral choices. Even though they usually come down to
killing or sparing the main supernatural being of the episode, none of them are no-brainers where the evil and good choices are immediately obvious.
A common complaint about the game is that the puzzles are too easy. My personal opinion has always been that it's better for these to be too easy
(unless they reach the triviality of Killer7 [ã‚ラー7] puzzles that feel more like artificial playtime pumps than actual puzzles) than too hard, but it still needs to be pointed out that the puzzles are indeed very straightforward. Pixel hunting pains are alleviated with an option to highlight all points of interest on a given screen, but the game does not inform you of such - I only learned about it after looking up a guide online after being hopelessly stuck on one of the puzzles
(it turned out that two shelves in a cabinet are actually separate interactibles)It's not the puzzles that make this game what it is. Apart from already mentioned intricate worldbuilding, two key ingredients make the compound work - characters and story direction. The former is mostly through the key members of the Unavowed: a fire mage Eli, and a jinn warrior named Mandana. They both have a well-rounded set of motivations and personal values, interesting backstories, and slowly reveal new aspects of their identities as the game progresses. However, like a counterweight, the two supporting members of the organization are never developed to the same extent, being defined mostly by one or two key characteristics and shallow backgrounds. They are not
bad characters in any fashion - just unremarkable.
The plot of the game is developed in a deft fashion. Every separate story is a slow, tense buildup to a satisfying reveal, connecting all the threads the player managed to unearth during their investigation. Most of the twists actually caught me off guard, expounding the ability of the game writers to come up with genuinely clever and subversive plots within the constraints of the genre.
Guiding the story is the idea of how the affections, attachments and loyalties constitute the identity of a person. We see these presented in many different forms, every one highlighting a different axis of how one grounds themselves in whatever environment they function. We see it take on a mask of a familial love, affinity for some kind of place, devotion to some kind of an idea or a group or as a profound appreciation of some aspects of human activity. However, all of these reveal themselves in their deteriorate forms as well, as raging obsessions pushing the actors into ruthlessness of the state where everything else but your fascination disappears from the horizon of visibility. We see the characters as being in the state of a constant pursuit - it is not enough to find some kind of ground once and then settle there. Worldview of a person is under constant pressure from the outside environment, forcing one to constantly reaffirm themselves in face of the peril and challenges of life. Sometimes, every anchor establishing the stability of life disintegrates, and it's at these moments of immense anxiety that one is at their most vulnerable.
That is the guiding idea behind the main villain of the game. They are a person with no foundation that could anchor their being, and it is a want to escape the constant anxiety and dread that makes them do horrible things just so that they might have a shot at creating a place where they might finally feel grounded and safe. I believe that is what makes the characters of the game relatable. Ultimately, almost every single one of them is in state of constant pursuit, and even the ones who seem to have a well-established value system are faced with doubt and a need to reassert their ideas when faced with some kind of tremendous event endangering their worldview.
What are you supposed to do when the sense of duty you always treasured so much leads to a death of your beloved person? How do you react when the pursuit of artistic expression, that was always so important to you, results in a self-destruction of the individual?Unavowed won't entice you with clever puzzles nor stunning visuals. The music is unremarkable, and the environments, while not being an eyesore, are nothing to write home about either. All of these are placed there to let the most important happen - a fascinating vision of a world where magic creatures and modern day city meet, and a captivating, endearing story slowly unraveling itself through the characters, places and situations you find all throughout your journey.