After a lengthy two-year early access period in which it went through multiple revisions and some pretty expansive reworks, Compulsion Games’ psychedelic survival game We Happy Few has finally launched in full on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.
We Happy Few aims to marry story and survival gameplay components by dropping players into an alternate history 1960’s British town called Wellington Wells. The townsfolk of Wellington Wells are so desperate to forget the horrors of World War II (In the game’s alternate timeline, Germany prevailed during the conflict, resulting in an occupied Britain) that they purposefully keep themselves addled on a drug called Joy that floods their senses with artificial happiness. However, that same desperation for constant happiness has also transformed Wellington Wells into a dystopian nightmare where those who refuse to take their Joy are labeled as “downers” and condemned to death.
The player begins the game as Arthur Hastings, a former government employee whose desire to find his missing brother Percival (the references to Arthurian legend are deliberate in case you were wondering) has overridden his need to take Joy. Over time, the player can also unlock two additional playable characters: a talented chemist named Sally Boyle and a grizzled Scottish soldier named Ollie Starkey. Each of the three characters has their own unique talents and skills (reflected in the game’s RPG-style skill trees), but regardless of which character the player controls they can utilize stealth, evasion, and (when necessary) combat to facilitate their escape from Wellington Wells.
The game’s in-depth ‘ABC’s of Happiness’ trailer does a much better job than I ever could of showing what We Happy Few is all about. If We Happy Few sounds like just the sort of game you’d want to invest heavily into, then you might also be interested in the recently announced DLC season pass that grants access to three separate post-launch expansions.