The “survival” genre has exploded in popularity since the release of Minecraft over a decade ago. Since then, we’ve gotten all kinds of island sims, survival-builders, and even a re-emphasis on the survival aspect of “survival horror” in recent Resident Evil titles, but I don’t know that any of those games can be compared to Re:VER PROJECT -TOKYO- in fact, the first game I could think of that really deserves the comparison is probably Pathologic, and that should tell you a lot about the experience of playing this demo.
Story and Setting
You play as Amane, a Japanese boy who is falsely accused of a currently unspecified crime. While on the run, he encounters someone caught up in a similar situation but far worse off, the former idol Hinagi. While they attempt to uncover the real culprit and clear their names, they’ll have to survive night by night in the urban sprawl, while evading the police and trying to continue blending into society.
The game’s moody score and deliberately faceless presentation set the tone quickly for this noir-flavored mystery, but given that there are just a few small teasers of the larger plot in the demo, the real meat of it is the gameplay experience. Even playing this during a convention party, I was utterly captivated by the feeling of this game.
Gameplay and Survival Mechanics
Something that many of the most popular survival titles have in common is that they’re really not that difficult or stressful, and given enough time, you can basically automate the process of keeping your hunger meter up. The setting of downtown Tokyo makes this much more difficult, as does the rapid decay of the needs of both Amane and Hiragi, who cannot leave the hideout for fear of instant recognition and quickly falls ill to some mysterious overdose.
Playing this demo is stressful in the most delicious and satisfying way – you can’t run in crowded areas without drawing attention, nor can you rifle through trash cans with onlookers too close. Each time you either deliberately take on the risk or get caught accidentally, the police get closer to catching you, and as their progress increases, so too does their presence in the streets.
Adding even more to this is your very limited backpack space – the demo gives Amane only six slots to carry both crafting materials and items to keep your three needs met, and the main quest of this segment will temporarily take up four of them. The game seems designed to deliberately keep the player on the brink while they work towards their next goal, and enticing them to keep going with tastes of the bigger picture. The end of the demo even has Hiragi asking an extremely prudent question of Amane that isn’t often addressed in these games, and that has stayed with me in the month since I last touched PROJECT -TOKYO-.
Final Thoughts
Ultimately, the most shocking thing about Re:VER PROJECT -TOKYO- is that until playing it at PAX, I had never heard of this title. The game took only minutes to seriously draw me in, despite the sea of other titles surrounding it, and the lack of attention it has gotten thus far is much more criminal than its protagonists. Even just this fifteen-minute sample was an incredibly unique time that left me desperate to find out what happened next, and hopefully, we won’t have long to wait.
Re:VER PROJECT -TOKYO- is coming to Steam in 2025, with a demo available now.
AloJapan.com