I am quite torn on this one. Going to start from the fact that actually, through my entire life I hated point'n'click adventures/puzzles/quests with passion, as even if they are coherent and consistent (which is already quite rare occasion), I'm just not that good at patiently clicking through screen in search for insights, as well as adapting to usual insanity of the settings. So, I learned about this game absolutely randomly from one particular gaming youtuber (you know, THAT one) and looked at the game only after the guy and few other more or less reliable sources gave the game some very high praise.
Oh boy, this one was a ride. In tone with the game's story, it's like a vision of someone's deepest nightmare, which is outright morbid and revolting, yet at the same time sensitive and fascinating. I still have spoilers on my mind, so - off with that, and into more pragmatic judgement.
As someone who never played original Stasis or Cayne, I felt that the world building is.. professionally weird. Just enough to show the world of man-made horrors characters are living in, yet not enough to actually revel in it. I genuinely wanted more, but that's a narrow line and the game is rather on good side of it.
The characters (voiced ones, at least) are outright brilliant. Voiceover pretty much carries entire story on its shoulders, and even as aforementioned horrors are getting stale just from overexposure, the characters, their comments and reaction rightfully sell you the impression that no, nightmare is not over yet, it's about to turn for the worse. Besides, most of characters have their distinct and well written personalities, which drip through the dialogue organically (pun not really intended), so exposition dumps are naturally cut down and don't feel awkward. Absolutely stellar for the game of this kind.
As extremely shortsighted dude, I'm not much of a graphic guy, so not going to say a lot about visual perfection, but the game keeps its style with dark consistency, without breaking the atmosphere as long as story mandates so. It's dark, cold and revulsive, in accord with the story. Music and ambience complements the atmosphere amazingly, and I'd like to hear more of that, especially contrasting themes of different characters, but that may actually distract from dialogues, so it's very good as it is now.
The story is one of the weirdest trips I ever heard/read. Mundane technological horrors, intermingled with social ones, go deeper and deeper into zone of discomfort, and before you know - it easily reaches Deadspace levels of disgust, and you think - okay, it can't get worse than that. And then it suddenly does. Milk pump gave me a lot to think about. The thing is, around 60-70% into the story, the plot makes strange 270-turn (yes, almost tying itself in a knot), and if you didn't paid attention to all the foreshadowing going on - it may feel uncomfortably disconnected. Yet, when topic switches from originality of the setting into.. more familiar tropes, character drama gets a lot more tense, almost palpable, so I don't mind at all.
Oh, and being native to particular post-soviet country makes some pieces of the plot sound outright silly, but given artistic licenses of the writer's vision, that's not really a problem, even if you understand the silliness.
Last thing that struck me, and this time in a bad way - generative AI content. I played the game after notorious switch from AI fillers to supposedly hand-made ones, but it's still quite apparent that many things are generated and at best just touched by human hand during production. Like that of portraits of minor characters, you cannot unsee that once you seen it. I am very not fond of generative AI slop, and this caught me by unpleasant surprise.
But at the same time, I'm not a hypocrite enough to pose as crusader of purity against machine-generated slop. The game is good. The story is good. The atmosphere is good. Even with generated parts, the game have quite some soul and thought put into it. Is it reasonable to reject something that good only because it has some drops of bad, slimy AI blood in it? I don't know, everyone decides for themselves, but I'd say no, the game still definitely deserves its praise.
If you want to delve into absolutely disgusting (in a good way) horror game, and/or tragic story of people making through the hardships by hope alone, buy this game. It's absolutely worth its money and several evenings of your time.
