In a year full of massive games, it’s easy to miss the smaller titles that deserve your attention. Games that, despite a lower budget, aspire to tell unique stories and offer special experiences. The Invincible is one such game. To get it out of the way right off the bat, I haven’t read the Niezwyciężony (translated to The Invincible in English), the Polish science fiction novel by Stanisław Lem that this game is based on. While it is very apparent when playing through the game that it’s faithful to the 1964 source material in some ways, I can’t speak to the accuracy of the adaptation as a whole. My thoughts on the game will be regarding how it stands as a game and why you should definitely play it.
The Invincible sees you stepping into the space suit of biologist Yasna as she wakes up on the desolate planet of Regis III. Though dazed at first, she soon gathers her bearings and sets out in search of the remaining members of her crew. Along the way, she reestablishes a connection with Novik, the Dragonfly’s Astrogator who keeps Yasna (and consequently you) company on the journey ahead. Over the course of nearly seven hours, Yasna explores the barren landscape around her and uncovers secrets hidden under the surface of Regis III. I can’t say much more about the plot as it’s relatively short and saying any more will take away from the experience.
If you heard of The Invincible before, it was probably defined as a “walking simulator.” I’ll get more into the term when I talk about gameplay, but, sticking with the story, a key function of a successful walking simulator is an impactful narrative. As the game started, I was curious to see if there would be enough meat in the story to grab my attention. To my surprise, the game had gotten its hooks in me within the first hour. The writing here is great, pushing the narrative forward at a respectable pace while providing evenly-spaced revelations to further pull you into the mystery. Stanisław Lem didn’t just write science fiction, he wrote about philosophy and the game reflects that. I played the game across three days and I found myself thinking about the conversations between Yasna and Novik even when I wasn’t playing.
Speaking of playing, let’s talk about the gameplay. If you’ve played games like Firewatch or Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture, you will be familiar with what to expect in The Invincible. There is nothing here that is challenging. The scope of the game is quite expansive but you also can’t get lost. At almost any time in the game, you can press down on the d-pad to open the mission log. This not only gives you the current objective but also a map that shows both where you are and context clues for where to go next. And as you approach a point of interest a small white circle appears, signaling an interactive item in the environment. It’s fairly easy to stick to the log and simply travel from point A to point B but you’d be doing yourself a disservice by doing that. While it’s not until the end that the whole picture really comes into focus, going off the beaten path does help in developing that picture further. That all being said, however, The Invincible does throw in some gameplay variety with the inclusion of a rover that you can drive around the map.
Then there’s the visuals. Wow. The Invincible is a game that consistently looks great. Oddly enough, as an outspoken fan of photo mode in games, I actually found the feature to be pretty lackluster here, but it didn’t matter because the game looks so great in gameplay. Minimal HUD and UI really allow you to take in the scenery and that’s exactly what I did on the Xbox Series X. Rarely in a game did I stop and stare as much as I did at the monochromatic landscapes of Regis III. Special mention goes to the art direction and level design because entering a new area is often so beautifully staged that it sort of feels like the developers are just bragging about the quality of their work. The environments are gorgeously detailed and the retrofuturistic tech is satisfyingly tactile to interact with. I did experience some texture and shadow glitches in the early hours but they were minor and went away by the end.
To touch on sound, The Invincible uses crisp (if not scientifically accurate) sound effects that bring the mystery of Regis III to life. The soundscape is befitting of the barren planet and the click of buttons, switches, and levers reflects the tactileness of their design. The music, composed by Brunon Lubas, only occasiaonlly takes center stage, but when it does, it’s surreal and otherworldly in ways that mimic the game’s retrofuturistic aesthetic. While all these elements are good, the highlight of The Invincible‘s audio is the voice acting.
Yasna and Novik are conversing for the majority of the game’s runtime and both performances are fantastic. It’s these performances that make the game almost feel like a radio drama. Or, perhaps more aptly, a fiction podcast. You spend so much time hearing just those two characters talk that it’s hard not to care about them by the end. Much like I said about the exploration, this is another case of the more you give, the more you get. There are times when Yasna can either start or end a discussion and some of them are so important that I think you’re actively losing out on context by skipping them. These branches in the dialogue tree are the game’s primary way of putting control in the player’s hands and they impact not only character relationships but also which of the endings you get when the time comes.
This leads me to my biggest technical problem with The Invincible. There are random instances where the dialogue will drop in volume. Initially, I thought this was a byproduct of spatial audio and that I was just standing far away from a given audio source. But a restart fixed the issue and I realized how my prior logic didn’t make sense when you consider the fact that Novik is broadcasting right to my suit. This bug reared its ugly head a few times during my playthrough and unnecessarily detracted from the story at hand. And, since we’re mentioning the problems, the only other technical issue I have to report has to do with a glitched probe. There is one point in the game where Yasna has to get to a probe for information but this particular probe phased through the level and made the process more difficult than it should have been.
I have two more points to make, one good and one not. Let’s do the not first. The one thing that really holds The Invincible back from greatness (or a 9 out of 10 to be specific) is its abruptness. Throughout the game, Yasna frequently (and conveniently) blacks out, waking up in the next gameplay area. While these moments are odd, they can largely be justified within the circumstances of the story. However, the game ends in a similar fashion, simply cutting to the credits without a satisfying conclusion. For a game that has multiple endings based on player choice, it’s unfortunate that you don’t have a conclusive bow to feel responsible for. In fact, if not for the comic book, I wouldn’t have even been able to really understand the ending that I got the first time around. This brings me to my good point. The comic book in The Invincible is really cool. For every significant plot point you come to, you unlock a correlated comic panel. This is used as the loading screen for when you load into the game and via the Comic Book tab in the main menu, you can essentially read through your entire adventure.
In a time where the industry is pushing itself towards a multiplayer-centric “games as a service” future, it’s nice to see a studio commit to making an entirely single-player narrative-focused experience like The Invincible. The lack of an engaging gameplay loop might deter some players but the great writing, gorgeous visuals, and fantastic performances are more than enough to make it worthwhile. The Invincible isn’t a game you speedrun. It’s a story you savor. While a lot of that may be a testament to the work of Stanisław Lem, it’s also a big accomplishment from the 27-person Polish studio, Starward Industries. If this is their debut, I cannot wait to see where they go from here. The Invincible is available now on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC. A code was provided by the publisher for review.
