We’re less than a month away from the August 10 launch of Compulsion Games’ trippy survival game We Happy Few, and now Compulsion has released a new trailer that shows just how dangerously chaotic the game will be.
The trailer, which is titled ‘The ABC’s of Happiness,’ treats viewers to a lengthy five-and-a-half minute look into the madness that drives the narrative behind We Happy Few. For those who don’t know, the game is set in an alternate reality version of 1960’s Britain, specifically a town called Wellington Wells. In order to forget the unspeakable horrors of World War II, the townsfolk of Wellington Wells have manufactured and become wholly dependent on a hallucinogenic drug called Joy. Unfortunately, while Joy does drown users in a euphoria of happiness, it has also turned Wellington Wells into a dystopian prison where those who refuse to take Joy are branded as ‘downers’ and sentenced to death.
As viewers can see in the new trailer, We Happy Few players will get to control three different characters as part of the game’s narrative, all of whom have been ousted as downers. The first playable character will be Arthur Hastings, a former employee of Wellington Wells’ authoritarian government who is searching for his missing brother. Later, players will get to play as Sally Boyle, a skilled chemist who can weaponize her formulas in a pinch. Finally, players will step into the weathered boots of Ollie Starkey, a Scottish ex-soldier who refused to take Joy from the very beginning.
The trailer seems to hint that the three playable characters will embrace different play-styles, with Sally favoring stealth and subterfuge, Ollie focusing on direct aggression and combat, and Arthur functioning as a sort of balanced middle ground. However, we also catch glimpses of an in-depth skill tree and a weapon crafting system, which seems to suggest that players will have a large amount of control over their play-style regardless of which character they’re controlling.
We’ll find out just how expansive We Happy Few’s gameplay will be when August 10 rolls around. In the meantime, be sure to check out the game’s various pre-order incentives and read about how it was recently approved for sale in Australia.