The Old City: Leviathan
Top Critic Average
Critics Recommend
Critic Reviews for The Old City: Leviathan
What exactly is one supposed to get from The Old City: Leviathan, a game lasting about about one and a half hours? Nothing. There's nothing worth remembering about The Old City: Leviathan.
The Old City: Leviathan is a bold game for its complete focus on the narrative that translates into a gameplay experience that is both atmospheric and haunting. While the game's story can sometimes become too obscure for its own good, the majority of the narrative experience shouldn't be missed by adventurous gamers.
The Old City is rich in evocative sets, but it's too eager to impress with its cleverness.
Take the core of a literary tale and put it into a beautifully constructive game, and you'll have The Old City: Leviathan.
The possibility that the world is illusory and that what we're seeing is a lie makes the world impossible to embrace, however. There's no strong sense of place, and nothing to anchor the high falutin ponderings that make up so much of the game. And even if we were to take it at face value, which seems to be impossible, it's only a snapshot, a vertical slice of this world without much context, making it hard to reach any solid conclusions. Theories and guesses, though? I've got dozens.
Ultimately, The Old City: Leviathan is about as far from 'a game for everyone' as can be. Slow-paced, directionless, and requiring an inquisitive mind, those who deride so-called "walking simulators" would do best to leave this title alone.
Putting a solid score on a game whose overriding ideology is a rejection of certainty is an act of high absurdity. But it's also somewhat appropriate for The Old City: Leviathan's other persistent theme of reconciling incompatible truths.
