Industria Review

I didn’t know what to expect when I started my journey into the world of Industria. Being the first game out of the doors of Bleakmill, a relatively small team to boot, I was already making assumptions about the quality of the title. Thankfully, most of my fears were unfounded and what was presented was an enjoyable narrative-driven FPS, tipping its fedora to a number of titles from the past.

You play as Nora, a scientist working on a top secret project named ATLAS somewhere within East Berlin in 1989. Woken from your slumber by a phone call, you’re told that the first steps to breaking down the Berlin wall have started; as such the Stasi are en route to the ATLAS facility in order to dismantle the facility. Despite the reassurances given that everything would be ok, you’re driven to reach the complex to offer your own assistance in tackling the problems.

The news on the TV bolsters the words of your friend, Walter, as a reporter is broadcasting live from the wall itself. However, I will express my disappointment at this stage, as not once was David Hasselhoff shown nor did I hear him singing “Looking for Freedom”; I feel an opportunity was missed here.

Once you venture out of your apartment block you see a police car drive up to the building, is that the dreaded Stasi? Are they about to ruin your life's work? All of a sudden a massive blackout happens, and all the lights of the facility and nearby apartments go out for a short while before the power is restored.

All of this opening sequence was drenched in Half-Life nostalgia for me and I couldn’t wait to push forward to find out what had happened. Inside the facility, no one can be found, not even the Stasi that you saw drive by; however there are droplets of lore scattered around in journal entries and pieces of paper that help piece together the calamity.

There’s no sign of Walter, though it seems like the experiment worked. As you try to follow his footsteps the machine starts to fail, requiring you to pull levers in the sequence that the screen displays. After you’ve floated in the air and warped around a bit, you find yourself in Hakavik, an alternative reality where machines have taken over.

The streets of Hakavik is where most of your time in Industria will be spent. Initially armed only with a pick axe, you may be better off trying to avoid early encounters, rather than trying to tackle the robotic enemies that you’ll face. This sets you on course for the rest of the game, trying to find out what the hell actually happened, not only in your world, but here in Hakavik as well.

There’s no denying that Industria is a short game as most people will be able to finish this in the same number of hours as they have fingers, while still having one left over to pick their nose with. However, I feel this is also reflected in the price point for the game; clocking in at £16.99/$19.99 or regional equivalent, you could honestly do a lot worse for that kind of money.

The visuals of the game are good for the most part, with the areas of Hakavik being the standout feature of the title. The atmosphere within the city is certainly helped by the architecture and points of metallic infection in the streets, with huge looming checkpoints and metal balls all over the areas. Throw in the narration between characters and some well placed musical interludes, and you can’t help but be drawn into the world that the developers have created here.

The weaponry found in-game would be your staple FPS choices; pistol, SMG, shotgun and sniper rifle, with the SMG being the most visually pleasing to me as the open box magazine felt like a nod to Metro 2033, as you could see each round in the magazine trickle down when firing.

What also surprised me was that Bleakmill have also managed to take advantage of NVIDIA’s ray tracing and DLSS technologies, to give Industria some extra wow factor as you progress through the streets. I did say the visuals for the most part were good, as I had encountered a few issues, foremost being the performance in some areas completely tanking my frame rates down to console-peasantry levels, so be prepared for some dips here and there. Alongside this, a few geometry issues were discovered and some untextured objects that took away from some of the immersion as I was playing, though it’s worth noting that none of these geometry or texture issues impacted on progression and are purely on a cosmetic level.

Oh, and if you’re one of those people that like to see their legs and feet when looking at the ground, I’m sorry to say that Nora appears to be some ethereal floating torso, as no legs were seen during my gameplay. This may be an immersion breaker for some, as how can a character jump, if they have no legs?

The boffins over at Bleakmill have already acknowledged a number of issues before I started this review and have already committed to improving optimisation, so expect some changes to be patched in relatively soon.

Once my time was over with Industria, I was still wanting more in terms of story. There are so many unanswered questions that I have, which I hope the developers answer in the form of additional content or some other medium to continue their tale. This is certainly an enchanting world that has been created and one to be experienced by anyone that enjoys narrative driven FPS games.