We Happy Few

 Xbox One
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
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  1. Joellemm
    Mar 9, 2019
    3
    An interesting premise with a stylish art direction can only take a game so far. Its a charming world, but has little in the form of personality. The writing is not especially creative or amusing, failing to compliment the world, and failing to produce memorable characters or stories. This world, as visually impressive as it is, is also way larger in size than necessary. This results inAn interesting premise with a stylish art direction can only take a game so far. Its a charming world, but has little in the form of personality. The writing is not especially creative or amusing, failing to compliment the world, and failing to produce memorable characters or stories. This world, as visually impressive as it is, is also way larger in size than necessary. This results in lots of emptiness and tediously long distances to travel. The gameplay is a mix of survival mechanics, puzzles, stealth and melee combat. The number of survival mechanics are extensive, and quickly become a burden to manage. The stealth and combat are both functional but simplistic. The puzzles were the most satisfying aspect of gameplay, utilising the unique world to create fun scenarios to work through, however, these enjoyable moments were few and far between. Sadly, its a game that is too big and has too many ideas, meaning that what does work, is hard to find. This is a shame because I really wanted to enjoy this game more.… Expand
  2. HauMauKhau
    Mar 13, 2021
    0
    WASTE OF TIME. Normal mode does not feel like normal mode, combat is UNBALANCED AND BIASED, there is no prompt that selecting arcade mode deletes save files and like any other stealth games, ROOKIE NOOB DEVELOPERS used stealth as a weapon so players overlook the game's TINY LITTLE STORYLINE .
  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 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, essentiallyThe 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.    … Expand
  4. Exanthius
    Aug 14, 2018
    1
    I was hyped by the trailers showing off all the gameplay mechanics, but they did not show that the game gets repetitive very quickly. This is a typical 20 € game with a great atmosphere, but it is 70 € on the German Xbox Store This is 50 € too much and, to be honest, very shameless. All these years of waiting and delays for such a thin and overpriced game. What a shame.
  5. Broyax
    Feb 13, 2019
    2
    Une dystopie à la Orwell plutôt intrigante sert de fil conducteur à ce petit jeu indé fabriqué avec les pieds et financé par quelques milliers de quiches (une "happy few" en somme) sur Kickstarter. Sauf qu'il n'y a vraiment pas de quoi être "happy" en ce qui concerne le résultat final.

    On se débat déjà plus que de raison avec l'interface générale très perfectible et l'humour "so    Une dystopie à la Orwell plutôt intrigante sert de fil conducteur à ce petit jeu indé fabriqué avec les pieds et financé par quelques milliers de quiches (une "happy few" en somme) sur Kickstarter. Sauf qu'il n'y a vraiment pas de quoi être "happy" en ce qui concerne le résultat final.

    On se débat déjà plus que de raison avec l'interface générale très perfectible et l'humour "so british" nous passe par dessus la tête dans cette Angleterre autocratique (cest comme le rosbif aux groseilles, on y arrive pas...) ; et si on peut sauvegarder manuellement, le jeu ne nous remet jamais précisément là où on était...

    L'infiltration ne fonctionne pas vraiment ou du moins pas de façon tout-à-fait exploitable, ce qui oblige à passer trop souvent par des combats au corps-à-corps incroyablement brouillons et mal foutus.... une jauge d'endurance à la con restreint de surcroît énormément les mouvements d'attaque et les armes s'usent un peu trop vite. Il faut aussi fabriquer sans arrêt des tas de trucs, une fausse bonne idée encore mal implémentée ici dans ce petit univers bizarre.

    Techniquement parlant, on est pas loin du désastre : 1,35 mn pour charger, des saccades et des ralentissements récurrents et un aspect général assez repoussant perdu entre le dessin animé simplet et une direction artistique sans goût, pour ne pas dire bâclée.

    En bref, on s'emmerde et rien ici ne sort assez du lot pour nous pousser à continuer tant on bute régulièrement sur des éléments désagréables qui entachent le gameplay durablement et définitivement.    … Expand
  6. Mindkiller7522
    May 12, 2021
    1
    12/31/20-1/10/2021 100% Story 50% Side Quests

    Terrible! The only (somewhat) good thing about this game was the story, which was still too long. You play as three different characters, none of which are interesting or compelling, as you try to escape a town in which anti-depressants are required and enforced. The world was interesting, but far too large for what content it had in    12/31/20-1/10/2021 100% Story 50% Side Quests

    Terrible! The only (somewhat) good thing about this game was the story, which was still too long.
    You play as three different characters, none of which are interesting or compelling, as you try to escape a town in which anti-depressants are required and enforced.

    The world was interesting, but far too large for what content it had in it. The art design can be neat at times, but most of the humor was a miss for me. There is also some amount of random generation, but there is absolutely no need for it other than for fluff and padding.

    The only way to accurately describe the game play would be “frustrating”. Survival mechanics can usually fall on the annoying side, but “child happiness” and “diabetes” might be the worst meters I've ever seen. Most people will probably ignore even the basic food and water meters, I suspect.

    All three character stories have this horrendous social blending nonsense built in, which means if you aren't wearing the right outfit or if you try to run instead of walk (slowly) everyone (EVERYONE) will attack you and chase you around. It's not uncommon to wind up having to run from or fight 20-30 people as you try to escape from a person who saw you do one hop in the air.

    The combat is bad enough to make you want to avoid it (not that the stealth is any better). Basically, it boils down to blocking and only taking breaks to hit someone who is also blocking.

    The voice actors do okay, but it was really irritating to hear Ollie's clearly fake and cartoony Scottish accent. They couldn't have found a real Scot? Or where they just not bothered to look?

    There were also glitches everywhere. From people walking on air to sound cutting out. It's tough to know what is and isn't a glitch, since the game play makes no sense most of the time. I kept hoping for a game-breaking glitch that would give me an excuse to shut it off for good, but I was able to make it all the way through.

    There was a kernel of a good game within this mess. If they had not made this open world and cut out the survival aspect, just a linear story in and interesting world would have suited this way better.    … Expand
  7. osprey
    Aug 29, 2018
    3
    I bought it right away when the early access was offered and was very excited by the look and sound of the game. I continued to play it as it developed and grew to hate it as time passed. I am happy that I didn't have to pay more to play the finished game as after such a long wait that would have been highway robbery but still hated the finished product. So sad that this didn't pan outI bought it right away when the early access was offered and was very excited by the look and sound of the game. I continued to play it as it developed and grew to hate it as time passed. I am happy that I didn't have to pay more to play the finished game as after such a long wait that would have been highway robbery but still hated the finished product. So sad that this didn't pan out because obviously many people were excited about this game and it seems like most feel as I do that along the way they lost the magic that was there at the beginning.… Expand
  8. Steyraus
    May 24, 2021
    2
    The games a mess. Failed survival aspects, failed fps combat, failed story game. Not sure how a group of people can make such an unapealing product.
  9. Overwatcher
    Apr 27, 2019
    3
    Pros:
    + Promising story
    + Strong voice acting
    + Visually-pleasing art style

    Cons:
    - Extreme texture pop-in and streaming
    - Long loading times (like loading The Witcher 3 on a 5400rpm HDD)
    - Abundance of technical problems (glitches, constant frame stuttering and crashing)
    - Janky combat
  10. SenorKoquonfaes
    Dec 1, 2019
    2
    First thing I noticed about We Happy Few is it's retro-futuristic art direction, akin to the BioShock games. We Happy Few pulls this off well enough and it creates a nice looking game world.

    Sadly, the game's art direction is about the only positive experience I can relay about the game. The game's open world feels rather soulless and lacks any sort of personality. NPC's walk around    First thing I noticed about We Happy Few is it's retro-futuristic art direction, akin to the BioShock games. We Happy Few pulls this off well enough and it creates a nice looking game world.

    Sadly, the game's art direction is about the only positive experience I can relay about the game.

    The game's open world feels rather soulless and lacks any sort of personality. NPC's walk around the streets and that's it. No conversing or interacting with other NPCs and will only interact and talk to you if you engage them. The game's open world also feels unnecessarily large, a good chunk of the game's run time is just tedious commuting, until you unlock fast travel areas.

    The game crashed on me, well over half a dozen times, kicking me back out the Xbox One dashboard. The game's loading screens are unforgivably bad, lasting nearly a minute in some instances. The traversing of the open world environment also triggered slightly less long loading screens while still being in the same level area. This happened well over a dozen times and then I stopped counting.

    The game also has a serious issue with texture loading and streaming. Some textures would fail to load altogether, leaving a garbage bin to look like a blurry mess or a sign on some one's desk looking like the raised dots and dashes of brail. Some textures would pop in well after a second or two, others would slowly load in over time.

    The game's AI is among the worst I've ever seen. In one case, I was choking out a police officer who was not more than 2 feet away from his buddy and his buddy kept walking on like nothing was happening. There were also times where I was clearly trespassing in an area, stared right at an NPC a few feet away, and nothing happened, no reaction at all. The NPCs essentially have no peripheral vision and can't see past their own nose, so they're easy to cheese, run around and pick off.

    The game is also just a buggy mess. There's at least one area of the map that I can reliably clip through and see underneath the world. Several times an NPC's walk cycle **** up, so they just looked they were gliding around on rocket skates. One of my favourite moments was a woman NPC moonwalking backwards while doing the "happy strut" and then clipped through a building.

    The game relies on survival crafting elements for health, food and drinks, clothing, weapons etc, which weren't bad, but just took a back seat to all of the criticisms listed above.

    Overall, We Happy Few is a game that has some nice ideas that were poorly executed, serious optimization issues and various bugs and glitches. I bought this game for 50% off and still feel like I overpaid for this game.    … Expand
  11. Awanka
    Jan 26, 2023
    3
    I've been putting this off for a long while because I couldn't figure out what it was about. Well, it turns out the developers didn't know either. This is an annoying schizophrenic game that doesn't know what it wants to be. If I had to describe it, it's like a discount version of Dishonored with a Bioshock aesthetic. The setting is a post WW2 Britain where Germany won, and the societyI've been putting this off for a long while because I couldn't figure out what it was about. Well, it turns out the developers didn't know either. This is an annoying schizophrenic game that doesn't know what it wants to be. If I had to describe it, it's like a discount version of Dishonored with a Bioshock aesthetic. The setting is a post WW2 Britain where Germany won, and the society has been reshaped into something gaudy and cruel like Huxley's "Brave New World." There's a good amount of political messaging, and an undercurrent of absurdist humor in just about everything. It's a strange stew of themes and gameplay elements that don't work together at all.

    Dialog is pretty bad. The humor is like Mike Myers in his later years, or a bad Monty Python skit, and it almost always lands with a thud. There are flashback cutscenes that are dull and serve no purpose. I started skipping them after a while because they were so pointless and uninteresting. Quests are mostly of the fetch variety, and also endlessly annoying and badly designed. Quests often ask you to retrieve some common item you have left in your stash back at base like mushrooms or sewing kits. I love spending five minutes running back to base to retrieve a mundane item. This happens ALL the time. It would be great if you could carry everything with you, but the game has strict weight limits for your character.

    Combat is clunky. You swing at people until they start blocking, and then you wait until they unblock and swing again. Stealth mechanics are basic, and if you mess up you can usually just run away for a minute until enemy aggro resets and then try again. There's no real fun in this gameplay. It feels like just another chore you have to finish to get to the next part of the game.

    Something that is very different from other action RPGs is the emphasis on randomizing the maps, so the town city layouts, as well as quest and safehouse locations will be different every time. It's a bizarre usage of development resources, since almost no-one is going to play this game again. Another thing that I almost never see in other games is that you play 3 characters consecutively, each with their own abilities, storyline, and side-quests. It's almost like the game developers didn't know what story they wanted to tell, so they went with 3. It's more content, so it's not bad exactly. Just weird.

    One of the genuinely cool things in this game is you can take a hallucinogenic drug called "Joy" which changes the way the world looks like a giant AR filter. There's not much reason to take Joy in the game itself though outside of a few quest-related instances, so it seems like a lot of development effort was spent creating a mechanic that doesn't add much to the game. That in a nutshell is the problem with the whole endeavor. My impression of "We Happy Few" is that a bunch of people shouted out random ideas and tried to cobble them together into a game. It's a mess, and you have to look hard to find the fun.    … Expand
  12. Morgan35
    Apr 12, 2021
    0
    The game is very buggy and graphics are not impressive on Series X, it's even crashing. After Arthur's end you're starting with Sally's story, however Arthur don't leave anything to Sally so you must do same thing again. Spending your time looting and and improving Sally, this is just wasting of time, that's why the game is repeating itself.

Awards & Rankings

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

Critic Reviews

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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
  1. Official Xbox Magazine UK
    Oct 21, 2018
    50
    There's a general technical ropiness. [Nov 2018, p.80]
  2. TheXboxHub
    Sep 12, 2018
    80
    Even though the gameplay comes with its occasional glitches, has a bit too many things going on and is run by some strange mechanics, the story, characters, and overall tone are all brilliant and extremely well put together.
    Read full review
  3. 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.
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