Uncovering flaws and hidden truths in other androids through preset questions, emotional analysis, and moral choices that shape your future.
The game’s premise and presentation are unusual. You take on the role of an android, an artificial being created with one primary purpose: to interrogate other androids and machines on behalf of a corporation. While your character is officially identified only by a designation number, this reinforces the idea that you could essentially be anyone or anything.
Your function, however, is clear. By questioning other units, your task is to detect flaws, irregularities, or signs of malfunction in their responses, ultimately determining whether they are still fit for service or if they need to be repaired, released back into service, or decommissioned.
Through the entire game, you’re confined behind a desk, operating entirely through a computer terminal. The subjects of your interrogations are never physically present in front of you; for security reasons, they are restrained in another location. Each new interrogation begins with a brief dossier containing information about the subject, a short description of the suspected problem, and finally, a screen showing a close-up of an eye, an image strongly reminiscent of iconic moments in classic science fiction movie.
The interrogation process is straightforward but still tied to its own rules. You are provided with a list of topics and preset questions. While you cannot improvise or ask your own, the subjects’ answers can unlock new lines of inquiry, gradually expanding your options.
Sometimes progress depends on selecting a very specific question before others will appear. In other cases, you may need to decide whether to loosen the restraints to build trust, or tighten them to instill fear. The order of your questioning can matter greatly, and occasionally you are forced to choose a single path while others become permanently inaccessible.
The user interface has been designed to minimize frustration and keep the experience fluid. Once a question or topic has been asked, it automatically becomes unavailable and is grayed out. In addition, the full record of the interrogation is always accessible through a transcript icon. This means that no piece of information can be permanently missed, except for the options that become locked due to your questions.
To add complexity and tension, the game introduces emotional monitoring. Alongside the subjects’ spoken answers, you have access to a screen displaying six core emotions. Each time you ask a question, you can observe how their emotional readings spike in response. This often creates a revealing contradiction between what they claim and what they truly feel. For example, a subject may insist they are perfectly content, but their emotional graph may show a surge of disgust or sadness.
To further assist the player, these emotional spikes are recorded directly in the transcript. Each reaction is represented numerically in increments of fifteen; small reactions at +15, more significant surges at +30, +45, and so on. Because these numbers are placed beside the relevant question in the transcript, it becomes easier to spot patterns and identify when a subject’s words and emotions are not aligning.
At the end of each interrogation, you must compile a report summarizing your findings. This involves answering a series of multiple-choice questions and then deciding whether the subject should be released, sent for maintenance, or terminated. Once your decision is made, the interrogation concludes, and you receive a performance rating.
The corporation then provides commentary on your choices, either approving your analysis, disagreeing with it, or offering neutral feedback. The game reinforces correct play by rewarding careful and logical answers, but it also allows you to pursue more unconventional approaches. A flowchart at the end of each case records the most important discoveries and outcomes, though certain details remain locked until you replay the interrogation and explore different questioning paths.
The cast of subjects is surprisingly diverse, ranging from androids with specialized roles to actual humans. You may interrogate an android police officer programmed to pursue rogue machines, a unit pretending, or perhaps genuinely believing, it is human, a stunt android designed to endure punishment, and others. Some of these characters are stand-alone cases, while others are tied to the overarching mystery involving a rogue android network.
The gameplay loop remains the same throughout the game. Achieving consistently high ratings can unlock one single tool, which has the ability to provoke a specific emotional reaction in a subject, making them easier to manipulate. You will also gain a new home, but this has purely visual effect.
While the safest and most straightforward approach is to decommission every subject perfectly in line with corporate expectations, the game allows for more rebellious playstyles. You can choose to release units, explore their answers more deeply, and pursue hidden threads of narrative. However, deviating too far from standard procedure may put you at risk of becoming a target yourself. In fact, strange or suspicious actions can land your own character in the interrogation chair, forcing you to defend yourself.
Ultimately, after interrogating the final subject, the story concludes with one of several possible endings depending on the choices you made. You are then shown a comprehensive summary of all the subjects and outcomes. From here, you can begin again or rewind the narrative to revisit a particular case. However, rewinding erases all subsequent progress, meaning that if you jump back to the second or third case, you’ll practically have to replay the entire game. This makes finding all achievements a bit of a hassle.
