Review: The Swapper (PSN)

Release Date: Out now
Platforms: Windows, OS X, Linux, PS4, PS3, PS Vita
Developer: Facepalm Games
Website

The Swapper has been available on PC for some time, and after receiving much critical praise upon launch, its success has led to the game’s recent port to PlayStation Network, renewing some interest in the property. Even looking at the game through fresh eyes, it’s not hard to see why the game has been critically lauded, and it will no doubt be placed in the pantheon of great, recent platform games alongside Limbo and Braid.

In the distant future, a deep space mining vessel goes offline and its crew find themselves on a desert world, populated by large and supposedly sentient rock formations known as ‘The Watchers’. Through backward engineering of ‘The Watchers’, the scientists on-board manage to develop ‘The Swapper’, a device that allows an individual to create multiple clones of themselves, and to also inhabit the bodies of these clones. Unfortunately, things take a turn for the worst and the majority of the crew meet an untimely end. You play as an anonymous astronaut sent to investigate and uncover the secret as to what unfolded.

Almost immediately you are handed ‘The Swapper’, the cloning aspect being the game’s core mechanic towards puzzle solving in a platform layout. It’s up to you to work your way through the ship by solving puzzles in order to proceed (a la Metroidvania). The player engages with the main story by accessing memory terminals and reading the logs of former crew members, which chart the evolving narrative of events that unravelled before your arrival.

Something that the game certainly has going for it is its atmosphere. The large scale of the environments are emphasised by echoing empty sounds, neon light flare and glossy lenses that enhance the enigma. Clay models transferred into the digital setting add to an already unique and alien look, as well as the overgrown plant life that’s slowly consuming the ship.

There are similar puzzle layouts that, while never tiresome, can reach points where you feel that the mechanic could certainly evolve more, although the changing gravity physics mix things up in some interesting ways. Some puzzles have such a singular and opaque solution that a few players may find it frustratingly difficult and exact, but the game’s structure and open world quality allows you to skip certain puzzles should you wish to (notably, not all of them). Still, it is possible to complete the whole game without even approaching one or two sections of the ship.

The most surprising component of the game comes from the evolving sentiments borne between story elements and player involvement and interaction. The story and philosophical engagement with the subtext blend seamlessly together, to the point that it’s hard to imagine one without the other. The game raises questions regarding the nature of linguistics, communication and self-awareness, and with the death of each clone you can’t help but feel the same kind of abject, existential horror that burns constant in the story before you’ve even reached its conclusion. These mindless bodies following you in tandem, bound to your motions and discarded at will, but each of which you have at some point used in as a temporary host body for your “soul”.

Are these really the lifeless creations that they appear to be? Do they have some form of higher brain function that occupies their minds as you manoeuvre them? Do they feel pain, hatred or sadness in their final moments as their crumbled and broken remains dissolve into nothing? In many ways it’s one of the most frightening horror games of the year, throwing giant and terrifying concepts at the player while they try to focus on the issues at hand. The identity of the player is kept hidden as well, to further blur the lines between identification and impersonation. These are all things that are offered via suggestion and not strictly through exposition.

The game’s dense, multifaceted story is one that keeps you thinking long after completion, and even after the first play through you may not fully comprehend the big picture that it’s trying to paint. The morality issues linger until an ending sequence that really drives home the emblematic themes of identity and consciousness that have been present in the story. It’s a simple choice ending  with no necessarily right or wrong answer, but it’s enough to make you think twice about what you’ve learned over the game’s play time. By the end, you’ll have found The Swapper to be a unique and absorbing experience, and one you’ll want to revisit almost as soon as you’ve finished.

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