Trevor Philips is a 28-year-old account manager with no friends and a boring life that no one cares about. What Trevor doesn’t know is that he is one of the twenty-three thousand four hundred and fourteen citizens whose activity is being broadcast 24 hours a day on American Arcadia, the most watched television program on the planet. Nothing would make her suspect that his existence of luxury and comfort is a fraud if it weren’t for an unexpected message: “If you don’t leave the city right now, you’re going to die.”
This is the starting point of the new game from the Madrid studio Out of the Blue Games, a fast-paced narrative adventure that at no time hides its inspiration from the now classic film The Truman Show (Peter Weir, 1998). Here too, a large dome protects and isolates from the outside a metropolis that has been suspended in time, anchored in a colorful and jubilant vision of the seventies of the last century.
The team behind the acclaimed Call of the Sea (2020) returns with a game that keeps the focus on puzzle-solving, but ups the ante and adds more elements to the formula. American Arcadia combines platform and puzzle sections in 2D perspective with other moments in which it is played in first person and where the dynamics of exploration and hacking of devices prevail. They are two experiences in one that combine and alternate in a way that is as natural as it is surprising, always linked to a story that – although excessively linear for a video game – never loses interest, has a very well-written script and a pulse narrative with that nerve capable of keeping you glued to the computer screen.
Throughout the eight hours that it can take one to complete the adventure, the quality of the performances by a cast of actors who know how to give a lot of personality to characters that, although aesthetically minimalist, manage to convey many emotions, also stand out. . The same can be said of the excellent artistic design, a work that highlights the retro-futuristic city that gives its name to the game and which offers images of great visual beauty.
