We Happy Few

 Xbox One
Metascore
64

Mixed or average reviews - based on 17 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 5 out of 17
  2. Mixed: 10 out of 17
  3. Negative: 2 out of 17
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  1. IGN
    Aug 10, 2018
    73
    Although survival and crafting are fairly manageable, running through randomly generated towns, streets, or abandoned fields unfortunately shows that We Happy Few can’t hide from the ghost of its own past, no matter how much Joy you take.
  2. AusGamers
    Aug 20, 2018
    71
    Through it all there’s just something about We Happy Few that keeps you coming back. It could very well be the quality of the writing, the characterisation, and the setting of a post-war London trying to forget its shameful past through medication and dystopian control. Or it could be that, and the weird blend of ideas and styles. In the end, whether that’s enough to excuse some of the bland fetch-style quest design or the repetitive nature of traveling from one side of Wellington Wells to another, comes down to personal taste.
  3. Generación Xbox
    Aug 14, 2018
    70
    We Happy Few is an excellent story, and a fantastically imagined world, set in a game with many problems.
  5. 4P.de
    Aug 17, 2018
    68
    Ambitious action-adventure with a strong story and a beautiful visual direction. The superficial mechanics are average at best, though.
  6. Gaming Age
    Aug 29, 2018
    67
    Given how much care was put into the rest of the game, it feels weird that much of the combat — when you’re not either hiding or running — basically comes down to swinging your weapons wildly until you kill the other people. In a game that’s so intricately made, it feels oddly inelegant. We Happy Few isn’t nearly as broken as Contrast was, but it’s still frustrating that a game that looks and sounds so good doesn’t play all that well.
  7. TrueAchievements
    Sep 4, 2018
    60
    If We Happy Few had all of these problems while in Xbox Game Preview and a pre-release state, you'd be more likely to excuse it, but it's rare to encounter so many issues in a full game release. While none were game breaking, they spoil what can be a decent game, with a unique world, interesting characters, and a convincingly damning depiction of the perils of taking hallucinogenic drugs. It's a world to which you want to return, but it's also a world that throws up a new problem with every visit. With several patches, this game could be a fun experience, but right now it can often be an exercise in frustration.
  8. New Game Network
    Aug 30, 2018
    59
    We Happy Few contains moments of enjoyment and artistic brilliance, but they are short lived, and - like a Joy withdrawal - the eventual comedown of the clunky, burdensome reality of the gameplay seeps in. A classic case of style over substance.
  9. Official Xbox Magazine UK
    Oct 21, 2018
    50
    There's a general technical ropiness. [Nov 2018, p.80]
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  10. The Sydney Morning Herald
    Aug 27, 2018
    50
    For all its intriguing story beats, stylish techno-'60s aesthetic and well-presented characters, We Happy Few can't hide its origins as a run-of-the-mill survival game.
  11. Press Start Australia
    Aug 20, 2018
    50
    One of the year's biggest disappointments. Though there's a lot of the BioShock fingerprint evident here, this lineage isn't ever lived up to. The story, characters and the character of the world itself are positively to die for and exist as the game's few triumphs. It's a beautiful disaster of a game and was perhaps too ambitious for a developer so green as bugs, frustrating A.I. and a slipshod procedural generation robs We Happy Few of any chance it had to be great.

Awards & Rankings

26
#26 Most Discussed Xbox One Game of 2018
25
#25 Most Shared Xbox One Game of 2018

User Reviews

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User Score
5.8

Mixed or average reviews- based on 108 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 45 out of 108
  2. Mixed: 28 out of 108
  3. Negative: 35 out of 108
  1. Xbox_Alive
    Aug 19, 2018
    6
    I absolutely loved the presentation side of the game because both the visuals and sound design have a lot of charm and in some ways a bit ofI absolutely loved the presentation side of the game because both the visuals and sound design have a lot of charm and in some ways a bit of uniqueness as well. Each individual character story has been done to perfection and reaching the conclusion of each story was a very interesting and satisfying experience The combat doesn’t have a huge amount of depth to it what’s here is actually pretty good and being in combat can definitely be fun at times. Unfortunately the game suffers with an array of technichal issues and these issues do harm the enjoyment levels quite considerably.
    Whilst there is quite a lot you can craft none of the items you craft actually feel important.
    Some of the mechanics that are in the game feel out of place and ultimately they don’t combine together very well. The quests fail to pack a punch and the lack of variety in them means that they do end up becoming tedious quite quickly. Sometimes the world in which the game takes place in doesn’t feel alive and this can take the excitement out of things. Does We Happy Few do enough to get a recommendation from me? All in all it seems like a lifetime ago when We Happy Few entered the Xbox preview program and at first it was a game I had a lot of excitement for, but unfortunately that excitement didn’t last long. The idea of the preview program is to see the game improve over the months but I haven’t seen many improvements since it first came out and I must admit that I was little surprised to see it getting a full release when the game quite obviously suffers with a lot of shortcomings. Thankfully it’s not all bad and it does get some things right but at the end of the day it just gets too much wrong and when you combine that with the technichal issues it means I can’t recommend We Happy Few to you. It' once of of those maybe games, maybe rent it 1st?    … Full Review »
  2. BigEvilSquirrel
    Aug 11, 2018
    6
    3 out of 5.
    We Happy Few feels like it is full of potential that it just never lives up to. The survival aspects of the game (eating,    3 out of 5.
    We Happy Few feels like it is full of potential that it just never lives up to. The survival aspects of the game (eating, drinking, sleeping) feel like they could have been done away with. The crafting system is well implemented was was a JOY to use. Combat is ok, nothing special. Overall there just feels like a lack of polish. The story feels good so far, and will probably be the driving force to completing this game. It just feels like a couple of design choices and a lack of polish are holding We Happy Few back from true greatness.    … Full Review »
  3. GBG_Jason
    Aug 28, 2018
    3
    The story follows an alternate version of Europe where America did not intervene during the Second World War and much of the country is inThe story follows an alternate version of Europe where America did not intervene during the Second World War and much of the country is in shambles. To combat depression, the powers that be fed the masses a drug called Joy. Joy makes you happy whether you are or not, and in a unique way, changes how you view the game world and takes away any negative thoughts that plague you, essentially erasing them from your memory. If you decide to take the drug at some point, the world will appear clean and orderly. Off of the drug, you see the truth - everything is in disarray and the population has completely lost their minds and treats others that they discover not on the drug as criminals, calling them "downers." If you're discovered as one of the dreaded unhappy people, you'll be bludgeoned into submission and left to die. The story follows three protagonists in an intertwined tale of loss and how each of the characters is trying to piece together their own mysteries. The story is well crafted and drives the player to want to explore the world, but sadly, everything else sucks the joy out of the experience.

    The game blends scripted events with randomized sandbox/survival mechanics. The scripted areas, such as the opening that was included in the original demo, are great; it's everything in between that is awful. The majority of the open world gameplay will involve trying to locate specific items within a randomized game world, which wouldn't be that bad if the world didn't have a habit of changing mid game, also resulting in one of the longest loading screens I've ever encountered. On more than one occasion, I thought the game locked up during this only to have a sliver of the bar fill up a second before rebooting the software. This will occasionally work in your favor, moving one of the items closer to your current position, but often results in meandering around one of the most frustrating open worlds in recent history.

    On top of the survival mechanics, you'll have to manage your inventory in a careful manner, as crafting is a huge part of the game and many districts within will attack you simply for wearing the wrong clothes. In other situations they'll attack you because, well... I honestly have no idea, but when they do, the enemies come in huge swarms and are relentless in their pursuit. Sure, you can fight back (good luck if you're dealing with more than a couple of them) or hide in various containers, but all of the dastardly Joy users seem to have acquired X-ray vision as a side effect of the drug. You can try to sneak around the enemies, but the randomized areas make trying to experiment or find alternate paths fruitless, as failure results in a new area being loaded. Once frustration set in, I simply found myself running from point A to point B, hoping for the best with a trail of enemies following me.

    If you've played the demo or Early access version, very little has changed in terms of presentation. The abstract character and level design works well and succeeds at making We Happy Few feel like a spiritual successor to Bioshock or Dishonore;, however, the comparisons end there, with the game feeling like an utter failure on every other front. The fetch quests are boring, the crafting is never-ending, and the overall mechanics fail to impress, with combat being the weakest link. As I mentioned previously, our protagonists are barely able to defend themselves against the hordes of enemies, even when armed and going up against enemies who are using their bare fists - this is due to your attacks feeling as if they lack any power and are often heavily delayed. With this being said, the game would've been better off taking the route Outlast and countless other titles have done, which is simply removing combat entirely and requiring you to hide.

    While the scripted elements and story are worth taking note of, We Happy Few is anything but a joyous romp through an alternate reality that could have rivaled the games it clearly drew inspirations from. The game still feels unfinished, despite the Early Access phase having ended, leaving an empty, joyless shell in the place of a title that many, including myself, were looking forward to as "the next Bioshock." Even at a deep discount, I would strongly recommend leaving this game in the gutter with all of the other downers on the market.    … Full Review »
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