After the amazing two Max Payne games they have not produced a single great game again. I don't know who to blame specifically, but the focus on storytelling makes me think it's Sam Lake's fault, as he's the main writer and seems to hold a disproportionately large amount of power at the company. I'm not very familiar with the behind-the-scenes, but judging by how every project since after Max Payne 2 was headed by him and Mikael Kasurinen, it's almost like the two of them are the CEOs. I can tell you one thing: I care for Max Payne, I don't care for Alan Wake or Quantum Break. The main reason I wanted to play this game was the high ratings, which made the impression that it's a bounce-back from Quantum Break. Not at all, it seems to suffer from the exact same problems.

Everyone seems to praise the story above everything. I've only played the game for about two hours, so everyone will completely disregard my opinion, but I believe that two hours is more than enough time to convey something interesting. Honestly, if you asked me what the story is about, my response would be that I have no clue. It all starts with a monologue where the protagonist asks [paraphrasing] "You know how when you look at a poster in a room, it feels like that's an entire world? Well, there is an entire world in the poster, and they lied to me when they said there isn't." Something along those lines. At first I assumed the poster thing was a metaphor/analogy. But after playing for a bit, I think she was speaking literally. The story in this game is weird. It keeps throwing absurdist terminology at you, like "Federal Bureau of Control" or "Department of Nostalgia" or "Object of Power", but it never explains what any of that means. The protagonist keeps talking to a "you" which at first I assumed was like a meta reference to the player, but then no because this "you" helps her do something in a cutscene, which the player obviously has no control over. There are constant references to events and lore that the player has no knowledge of. I suspect this is done to get you interested, the Lindelof/Abrams school of writing. A kinda matryoshka doll (or "mystery box" as Abrams would call it) of questions. It's like watching an episode of Lost, a series I cannot stand. Just a cascade of questions with no answers, until the story completely loses touch with reality and I feel like I'm tired of being jerked around.

When it comes to the gameplay, it's not bad, but it also lacks anything remarkable or original, at least in those first two hours. About the first hour plays like the most generic TPS. Then you unlock the Telekinesis ability, and it feels a bit more like Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, or I suppose games like Second Sight or Psi-Ops, which I have very vague memories of, so I can't say for sure. The point is: there's nothing special or interesting about telekinesis anymore. Does the game get better later on? Perhaps. Perhaps you unlock new mechanics that make the combat more fun. Perhaps the story gets better too.

What I doubt will get better is the level design, which is just atrocious. It's like the devs knew it was a confusing maze, so they gave you a map and fast-travel. That doesn't really save it though. A lot of the times the locations the game tasks you with reaching are not depicted on the map. In addition, some pathways that look traversable on the map, in reality have impassable doors. And you won't know that until you try walking them. Some of those doors will open later, and you won't know that until you go there and see for yourself. On occasion you can't progress because you need to interact with something or find some tiny unremarkable-looking door that's hidden in some corner. The game apparently highlights these objects with a foggy circle, but you can't see it unless you're actually looking at the object. And even if you are, this foggy circle blends with the bland-looking environment. On three different occasions I ended up running around in circles for like 10 minutes each before realizing that I've run past the object/door I need to interact with several times and never noticed it.

Funny enough, the most fun I had with this game was when playing tutorial sections that are these abstract locations with a lot of platforming. The movement in the game is very fluid, and the way the protagonist mounts obstacles, it almost feels like parkour. They should've just made this a shooter-platformer with some acrobatics and maybe even slow-mo (why fix what's not broken?).

Anyway, it's safe to say that I won't be trying any more Remedy games. These are no longer the legendary developers of Max Payne. The actual lead designers of Max Payne 1 and 2 no longer seem to work in any leading creative positions there. In fact, Rockstar did a much better job at continuing Max Payne's legacy than Remedy did with Quantum Break.