KARMA: The Dark World is classified as a first-person psychological horror game from indie developer Pollard Studios and publisher Wired Productions. However, most players would describe it as a walking simulator. And to be fair, a majority of what you do in the game is walking around and solving narrative puzzles. As someone who plays a lot of games in the genre, walking simulators can really run the gamut. Each comes to the table with its own social or meta commentary that is draped across a foundation of familiar gameplay mechanics and varying degrees of visual fidelity.
I say all this because not all of them stay with you. Some borrow in deep and gestate while others quickly dissipate like the taste of lightly flavored water. I finished KARMA a few days ago and while I don’t love the game in its entirety (which I will get into), I do still find myself thinking about its themes and messaging long after the credits have rolled.
In KARMA: The Dark World, you play as Daniel McGovern, a ROAM Agent who works for the Leviathan Corporation Thought Bureau. If a game set in the year 1984 with a corporation run thought bureau rings a few bells in your head, it’s probably an accurate representation of what to expect in this game. There are lots of themes one can extract from KARMA but the heart of the game seems to revolve around the idea of loss of individualism under an oppressive corporate regime.
Leviathan Corporation, whose history you can puzzle together using memos scattered across the levels, is a global power and they use Mother, an AI overseer, to control its people. Daniel is nothing but a cog in the machine as he begins to investigate a case for the Bureau that hits closer to home than he expects.
Part of the investigation and a majority of the gameplay will include puzzle solving which I find to be a double edged sword here. For example, I played through the game with a notebook nearby to scribble down any clues I felt would be relevant to the puzzle. This is always a plus in my book (literally) because I find that sort of puzzle solving to be more satisfying as a player. Nothing makes you feel more like a special agent than consulting your notebook before punching in the code your gut tells you is right and hearing the locker ding correct in response.
On the other side, the puzzles are sort of surface level, falling apart structurally if you dig too deep. I mean yes, you did have to look at the security camera footage to find out the time on a clock on a painting that someone used to remember their password but, come on, how long does it take to get used to typing in a four-digit password? And that’s not the only clock-related code or locked drawer-related puzzle where the answer is displayed above the desk.
Speaking of digging too deep, that’s exactly what Daniel has to do as he investigates his case. Along with snooping around in the real world, he also has to delve into suspects minds to sift through their memories. The result is an interesting set of levels where the game’s surrealistic visuals shine. KARMA takes clear inspirations from the works of Hideo Kojima and Christopher Nolan and while they do manage to replicate some of the mind-bending set design, they sometimes fail to give it the necessary depth to really sink in.
The game is definitely experimental in nature and that’s not a bad thing. It’s just that it doesn’t always feel like you’re being guided by a confident hand through the journey. And, in the developers defense, that could very well be the intention as well. However, I still find certain designs (like that of the decontextualized antagonistic creature) to be a bit uninspired and certain story beats seemingly happen for the sake of simply adding to the gameplay.
That being said, I still found a lot of rather intriguing seeds of thought in this game that borrowed deep for a few days. At a very base level, the game’s themes, of corporate oppression as I said but also faith and memories, are relevant in the current socio-political climate. With the game being released in 2025, it’s hard to separate it from that context. But even more than that, there’s another important point at hand that speaks to the “walking simulator” genre in general.
Every player will bring a certain baggage into the game they’re playing. it’s a combination of their background, upbringing, struggles, and just what’s on their mind while they play the game. While I think KARMA is a good game, there is potential here for it to be truly profound for players carrying the right baggage. I found certain aspects, Rachel Weiz’s whole backstory, to be poignant and effective. The game manages to build a lot of character in a short amount of time, mixing gameplay mechanics to create an intended impact. It is at moments like this where I think the game is at its best.
Then we get to the ending. Perhaps where the game feels most like a Hideo Kojima project. In the final Act of the game, which is the shortest after the prologue, is mostly cutscenes that attempt to wrangle the narrative threads together. I don’t think the goal was to answer all the questions, because frankly the game doesn’t, but it also goes on for about 20 minutes longer than you expect. In a sequence reminiscent of the Death Stranding 2 pre-order trailer, the game is full of false endings and while in a trailer it might work to create intrigue, at the end of the game, it sort of diminishes the impact of each moment before it. Thought, once again, that’s my read on it and, depending on your baggage, your mileage may vary.
The game is visually strong. Not just in terms of level design but also in general looks. The game is built in Unreal and, by and large, it’s great to look at. There are moments where the game attempts to punch above its weight for graphics but these are reserved and the normal narrow corridors and confined spaces that you have to walk through are immersive. I ran into a few small performance issues while playing on the PlayStation 5 but I believe a Day One patch is already out to address them.
When it comes to audio, the results are a bit more mixed. (No pun intended.) Voice acting is mostly good with some notable exceptions that I don’t need to highlight. I think a bigger road bump for me was lip animation not matching dialogue but, with a game like this, I didn’t hold it against it too much. When it comes to mixing though, I am a bit more picky about. There are some poorly mixed audio sections including one where a character is both panting and talking at the same time. These may also be fixed with a patch but it did ruin my immersion.
Lastly, since there is no photo mode, I will briefly touch on trophies. The game has a pretty easy trophy list with most being unlocked naturally through gameplay. If you’re a big brained player like me, and solve puzzles accurately on the first try, you might even pick some of the missable ones on your first run. For any you missed, including collectibles, that add little bite-sized bits of context for the world, there is a very handy Chapter Select feature as well.
Alright, I won’t keep going. By now, you know what I think of KARMA and, more importantly, if it’s for you or not. I found the game to be overall immersive with a lot of interesting things to say. It might not nail all its moves but the ones it does hit are thought provoking. And that’s more than you can say about its contemporaries in the genre. If you’re looking for a spooky narrative puzzle game that will (hopefully) leave you thinking, then KARMA: The Dark World is one to check out. It’s available now on PlayStation 5 and PC via Steam and Epic Game Store. An Xbox version is slated to release sometime later this year. A review code was provided by the publisher.
