We Happy Few Reviews
It’s bold and adventurous world design that should undoubtedly be praised. If story and atmosphere can carry a game for you, then you should be able to look past the weaknesses elsewhere to enjoy this quirky and distinctive adventure.
We Happy Few has a pristine narrative vision, but it feels layered on top of a wholly different game. Much like the famous visage of the Wellington Wells citizenry, the story is a mask that tries to hide a buggy open world and needless procedural generation.
We Happy Few is an ambitious open-world survival game that does not benefit from being one. Tedious exploration courtesy of poorly-designed environments and underdeveloped survival mechanics detract from an otherwise strong main adventure. Charming presentation, colorful writing, and powerful environmental storytelling are highlights that are unfortunately eclipsed by a shallow open world.
Although We Happy Few makes a strong first impression, it's hampered by half-baked gameplay systems and a lack of crucial quality-of-life features.
It calls up any real experience of anxiety lickety split. But the threat's easy to escape and even easier to forget. The difference between a great idea and a great story is subtle, but important.
We Happy Few is a case of quantity over quality. A by-the-numbers venture whose game world seems to have been populated by a script rather than being handcrafted. Despite moments of what could only be described as brilliance, We Happy Few is full of fetch quests, boring busy-work and some of the most baffling design decisions in the history of video games. Oh, and it's broken as shit too. Happy? Not really, no.
We Happy Few Has such a cool atmosphere, interesting world and clever story that is can easily be considered “an heir to BioShock”. In that case why did the developers opt to fill the game with tons of ludicrous content and made the player chase butterflies for dozens of hours? The world should be smaller, the gameplay better and the game shorter. A bit of a letdown.
Review in Polish | Read full review
We Happy Few is a game that promises to be one hell of a good story drive ride from start to finish, but what we got was something that is so full of bugs and crash issues that it completely ruin the experience. Frankly We Happy Few needed to spend more time in development than it does being played. When something like this starts on Kickstarter, sometimes it just need to stay there. We Happy Few’s story is a highlight and should be an animated film more than a less-then-playable video game.
After being revealed to a reasonable amount of fanfare, it's fair to say that We Happy Few is one of the year's biggest disappointments. Though there's a lot of the BioShock fingerprint evident here, this lineage isn't ever lived up to. The story, characters and the character of the world itself are positively to die for and exist as the game's few triumphs. It's a beautiful disaster of a game and was perhaps too ambitious for a developer so green as bugs, frustrating A.I. and a slipshod procedural generation robs We Happy Few of any chance it had to be great.
We Happy Few is a great game that has the potential to be an excellent game with a few tweaks here and there.
We Happy Few features one of this year's most interesting settings but fails to fill it with quality gameplay most of the time.
We Happy Few combines survival mechanics with a deep and thoroughly enjoyable narrative, but technical hiccups hamper the experience. There was a bit too much reliance on stealth, giving a one-dimensional gameplay sensation, but thankfully you don't have to confront to that type of approach (although things are harder if you don't). Side missions help give life to the charming and witty characters you'll come across but are entirely optional if you want to play through the main narrative. The technical shortcomings and terrible frame rate are disappointing, along with some annoying missions, but with a deep and thrilling story, I was able to look the other way on some of the glaring issues, as none that I encountered were game breaking in any way. It is just a shame that Compulsion Games didn't remove the boring open world sequences and focused even further on tightening up the narrative experience.
We Happy Few is a game that deserves some more time to improve. As it stands, it offers some truly interesting characters in a well realized and intricate story, that unfortunately have been hampered by an overall unpolished feel.
We Happy Few could've been a great or at least interesting experience but fails to meet any of the promise.
I can't help but think that early access has potentially soured the experience for those who were as excited for this game years and years ago as I was. If you're in that group, I implore you to give the game another try — it's certainly worth reconsidering.
We Happy Few has an interesting storyline and attractive background settings, and the duration of the game is far beyond my expectation. But still, too many bugs make this game look terrible, and the mission design is not that rational.
Review in Chinese | Read full review
While it has one of the best game worlds ever envisioned, We Happy Few stumbles over painfully simplistic gameplay and several major bugs.
And a willingness to stick with a severely flawed release to experience a fascinating tale of regret, shame, and addiction that's full of ambition, charm, and memorable detail.
Compulsion Games transformed its randomly-generated, survival game into the dystopian narrative everyone asked for, but those randomized elements are still holding We Happy Few back from reaching its full potential. The twisted tale of a society addicted to its own Joy is lost underneath an endless hunt for bobby pins and scraps of cloth.
We Happy Few is going to go down as a cult hit. If you can muster the strength to get past its janky gameplay, there's a whole lot to love here in the world and characters. But the fact remains that this adventure is one that could have used a bit more refinement.