A Way Out quickly became an interesting concept from the beginning. A game that focuses heavily on cooperation and storytelling. For a quick reference, it’s a game that feels like a combination of the Uncharted and Telltale series. This game might have what it takes to influence the future of co-op games. Let’s find out, why we’ll see a lot more of these kinds of games in the future.
“A way out” is a game where two players take on the role as one of the two protagonists, Vincent and Leo. These two captives quickly find each other in prison and a bromance unfolds. The story, full of flashbacks, is actually a re-telling on how they met and how they’ve experienced this journey so far. The player will be a “live” witness on how the story has started and continued so far. Even though it feels like they’ve experienced a lifetime of moments, the game only takes five hours to finish. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, this game should be seen more as an interactive guided film than a fully worked out RPG game with an open world setting. The story has a slow pace to unfold but from the moment your partner and yourself take charge, the paces changes. Even though there are a lot of slow moments, even literally, the game offers a lot of cinematic moments that’ll definitely keep you interested to finish the game.
“A way out” is a cooperation game and can’t be played without a partner.”
You can also tell that Jon Fares has some experience with “cinematography”. He has a couple of films to his name and his work in the field paid off. The cinematic story is brought to you in different perspectives, scripted and unscripted moments. The way he uses these film techniques within the game is just amazing to see. You can tell, he isn’t afraid of experimenting and it’s for the better. Jon Fares mixes up the “splits screen” aspect with different setups and it’s a blast to experience this. The used techniques will change the way you’re looking at the storytelling of a game. These techniques can be used to maintain focus on a certain part of the story. The split screen aspect is variable, it can change depending on the focus of the game. If the main focus is all about Leo’s side of the story, Leo’s screen will become larger than Vincent’s screen. Also, one player will even remain active during a cutscene that’s involving the other player. The options are endless. Even though, this “splits screen” aspect makes the game feel special, it comes with a couple of problems as well. When one player is talking to an NPC and the other one also starts up a conversation, one of the dialogues will be muffled. So, it makes it impossible to hear everything. It isn’t really a big deal, because these dialogues aren’t very important but for the players who want to hear everything about the story, it might be annoying.
“A way out” is a cooperation game and can’t be played without a partner. The way the players have to interact with each other wouldn’t be convincing when a player should team up with an NPC. Jon Fares, already made it clear that “playing with a friend” is the only way to play this game as the game depends on the friendship between the two characters. I can already hear different gamers blame the developers for “making money” due to this focus on the “multiplayer” aspect but have no fear, the friend pass is here! The developers made sure, the boundaries for playing this game with a friend would be limited by offering a new approach to the players.
If a player buys “A way out”, this player can play the game with his friend locally or online without any extra cost. Only one player needs to buy the game, the other one just needs an extra controller or a console to play along. The system is fairly easy to use, startup “A way out” and send out an invite to play co-op. By doing this, the developers make it clear, it’s all about the game and not the money. They can make something they want, with a limited amount of restrictions due to the producers. But there are some restrictions, though. The most noticeable one is that only those who have bought the game can unlock achievements. The player who’s using the ‘Friend Pass’ system won’t be able to unlock these. Another restriction is that the ‘Friend Pass’ user can’t save any progress, this has to be done by the player who’s bought the game since he will always act as the host. Other than that, the gameplay experience is exactly the same.
Even though, the game feels like a big project or even a triple-A kind of game, “A way out” is being produced by a smaller studio and you can tell by graphical comparison to other triple-A games. The game has some amazing scenery, but the graphics feel a bit outdated. However, the voice acting, and facial expressions are done very well, hats off to them especially when you know that the “motion capturing” has been done by the studio itself and not by an experienced third-party studio.
From the beginning, you can tell that “A way out” will offer a lot of action-packed scenes, especially when it’s all build up like a movie. However, don’t think you’ll be able to take the action head-on. The game feels like a good mix of scripted and unscripted moments. Even when I’m not a fan of QTE-events, I don’t think the developers could have done this gameplay differently. We should stop by seeing this project as a game, but more as an interactive film where you’re one of the actors. The main focus of this project is the story behind it and not the action that’s being used to tell this story. Don’t get me wrong, there will be some awesome “active” moments but don’t expect something groundbreaking. I do want to tell that the developers succeeded in making the project as “living” as possible. Even though the story’s being told, there’s room for exploring. There are a lot of NPC’s to talk to that’ll give you some information about the environment you’re in, there will also be a lot of mini-games to take your mind off the story for a bit and just enjoy the world they’ve built. All of those mini-games were simple, and it’s being used to figure out on how to play the game and to stimulate some friendly rivalry between the players. There were also some interactive moments with the environment that I didn’t expect and that’s always a plus for me. Also, the game has some “puzzling” moments as well. The game offers you a “problem” and it’s up to the players to search around in the environment and come up with a solution. The problems were quickly “solved” but it still takes up some “careful” planning between the players. The puzzles are simple, but they shouldn’t be too hard because once a problem is too difficult to solve, it’ll make the “tempo of the game” unbearable and this will quickly take you out of the virtual world.
Next, to the puzzling aspect, there are also more “combat focused” chapters within the story. For the larger part, they do an okay job to make the combat exciting and fluent enough to keep the players interested. The movement between covers has been done great but I did have some troubles when I had to aim. The aiming system is “not bad” but it’s also “not good”. I always felt that the aiming didn’t feel natural, I had a feeling that my aim was constantly “moving” and I couldn’t get a clear shot. I played it with a controller while my partner in crime used mouse & keyboard and even with mouse & keyboard, the aim felt off. I do think, this aiming sequence was intended, so you wouldn’t feel like an action hero that could get one shot kills without even looking. The AI of the NPC’s isn’t very good, as long as you have some experience with third party shooters, this will be a walk in the park for you. The combat is very easy, and it could be played by players without any gaming experience. The puzzles are interesting but simple, QTE- events fill up the game and combat is limited, so a player without any gaming experience could pick up the controller and play alongside his partner in crime and finish the job. For the players who are looking for something challenging, this is not the game for them, but the game could be a great introduction for non-gamers. Then again, we shouldn’t see this game as a game but more as an interactive storytelling. So, people who’ll love a good film will love this “project” as well.
These interactive games, just like Telltale games, will offer “important” choices to the players that’ll influence the story. For example, “A way out” will offer you different choices on how to approach a certain situation. I didn’t feel like my choice had a great impact on the story, in my opinion, it’ll only give another direction to the story rather than influencing the end of the story. The game does offer you different endings, but this is being influenced by one thing at the end of the story. This is a bit disappointing, as the developers used this as a selling point. However, it’s great to see that the developers implemented a “chapter selection” feature. This will offer you the chance to replay certain chapters and approach it from a different angle. It’s also a great way to see the different endings without losing too much time for a second playthrough. The unexpected end was definitely a plus for me.
Conclusion:
“A way out” is an amazing project that’ll definitely influence the future of cooperative games. The game offers an interesting story about two captives that’ll need each other’s help to finish what they both started. The game does have multiple endings but the player’s influence on these stories is very limited and that’s a bit of a shame, especially when the main focus is “storytelling”. The cooperation between players is key to finish the game and “A way out” offers different puzzles that’ll push you to explore and interact with his living environment. The game looks a bit outdated but its voice acting and “motion capturing” will make up for your time. Even though the “multiplayer” focus will upset some people, the developers are making sure you’ll be able to find someone due to the use of the “friend pass” system.
