Review: Dreamfall Chapters Book 2 – Rebels

Spoiler warning: Plot points from Book 1 will be discussed in this review. If you wish to play Book 1, you can see the review for it here.

“Choice is an illusion”.

These words are spoken by Kian Alvane early in Book 2 of Dreamfall Chapters which was recently released by Redthread Games. And indeed they seem to ring true at first. Kian is given a choice: join the rebels who rescued him but who are very much strangers to him or refuse to join their movement in which he has no interest. Choose any path other than the one the game clearly wants you to take and you are immediately presented with a “Game Over” screen.

At first I was miffed with this development. I was not in the mood for the “fight with some rebels for a cause the character clearly has no investment in” plot. But it seems I had to do it if I wanted the full story. Why bother giving me the choice at all? But then I thought about for a few minutes. And I have to say, kudos to the developers. The choice to do nothing is still indeed a choice, and they showed the player the consequence of that choice.

Choice may have been an obvious illusion in this case. I prepared myself for an episode full of these illusions. The choices I was presented with later on though were far from obvious. In fact, they were downright difficult, marking Dreamfall Chapters as my favourite game so far of the year!

Zoe is still looking as stylish as one can look in a dystopian future.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Dreamfall Book 2, named Rebels, starts off a few days after Book 1 left off. Things are looking pretty tense in both the worlds of Stark and Arcadia. On the Arcadia side we have Kian who managed to just barely survive his gunshot wound after being rescued by the rebels. Alone and with little choice, he chooses to join the rebel magicals to drive the Azadi from Marcuria, who seem to have some nefarious scheme cooked up for the once thriving city. For the “magicals” living in the city it’s a grim life full of raids and arrests to anyone who dares object to the Azadi rule.

Meanwhile in Stark, Zoe is still having trouble with her incredibly boring boyfriend, Reza (seriously…why is she still with him?). She must also try to find a young street girl who may be in trouble. Doing so could gain her favour with Queenie, an influential higher up who could significantly help the political campaign Zoe is working for. But all is not as it seems: the Eye (the police force for Europolis) seem to be everywhere now, riots are only growing in intensity and there is something very sinister going on in the political battle for leadership. Then of course there is the Dreamer, the entertainment phenomenon brought to the world by WatiCorp, which only seems to be growing in popularity and addiction.

Because a mask like object has never had any negative repercussions in any piece of fiction ever…

If that sounds like a lot to take in, don’t feel alone. Rebels is a far meatier installment than its predecessor. Now that the set-up and introduction of Book 1 is out of the way, Rebels wastes no time in moving the story and characters along. At the same time, with 6-12 hours of gameplay the episode is clearly comfortable putting up its feet and taking its sweet time exploring the vast worlds introduced in Book 1.

The tone of Chapters has quickly established itself as far darker than previous installments. Longest Journey had its grim moments, certainly. But Chapters, and especially rebels, seems to go that extra mile. I remember in Longest Journey meeting the Banda, a group of “mole people” who dug tunnels by singing to the soil. They were a gentle folk and I was instantly enchanted by. Cut to Chapters, where you find out that not only were the Banda wiped out, but that the sole survivor is now an embittered crime lord living in Marcuria. Visiting the magical market, a delightful activity in games past, is marred now by the ever present Azadi banning all magical items and the magicals themselves looking worriedly around for fear of being arrested. Like I said…dark.

Oh, look it’s a Banda JESUS WHAT HAPPENED!

Also aiding in the dark tone is the consistently brilliant soundtrack. Wandering through Marcuria you are accompanied by a very subdued, troubled melody. Reaching the magical market provides some hope and merriment among the hardships. Propast has a futuristic and epic soundtrack that suits the setting.

With Kian freed from prison and conscious, we get to see much more of Marcuria this time around and it is frankly gorgeous. It helps that Redthread has cleared up a lot of the technical issues brought forth by Book 1. The results are immediately apparent. I had no issues running the game on the highest settings. Things aren’t perfect still. Propast unfortunately for myself still displays these weird lens-flare polygons that makes visibility difficult. Animations especially involving long hair and the occasional lip sync were awkward. But overall it’s a vast improvement and very pretty looking game.

Pictured: Pretty looking game.

For fans of the series, being able to visit some old favourite locations up close is nothing short of thrilling. There’s the Enclave, where April Ryan forged the disc of the Balance. There’s the home of Abnaxus, the Venar who aided April. There’s even the south docks, where I very much hoped to see my old friend Captain Nebevay (that might have been a bit too much to hope for of course). As fun as the old locations were, the new locations and streets added much depth to the fantastical city. I only wish they were a bit easier to navigate. With a map that you can only access at certain points in the city, it became frustrating to try and remember where the heck I was heading sometimes and I ended up spending easily an extra hour simply wandering to wrong places. I realize this is a personal preference, but man…a direction challenged person like myself longed for a mini-map.

With the new locations we also get new characters. Among them is Likhko, a Dolmari man with a very justified grudge against Kian, is a hardened solider who could either end up Kian’s best bro or his mortal enemy depending on how you play (it’s unclear yet which way my playthrough will sway). Enu is the antithesis of that: awkard but eager to please who sees the positive side of everything and would just love everyone to get along. There’s also a Dolmari kid named Bip. I’m only mentioning him because he manages not to be non-annoying and a non-annoying child character is always noteworthy for me. Already established characters get a bit more development which is nice considering how many characters there are already in the series.

I was getting Reboot flashbacks talking to this kid.

As for our main characters, once again it is Kian who seems to be the more compelling of the two. With a past coming back to haunt him and a crisis of faith that continues to rear its ugly head, he has the more clearly defined arc so far. Zoe is still a very interesting character. But apart from her interactions with Baruti, her campaign manager, and Mira, her foul mouthed boss (at least if you played my version of the playthrough), she still seems to be very much a victim of the plot. Until she decides to “wake up” from her self-inflicted life pergatory, her character is a bit more unclear.

That’s not to say that Rebels is poorly written. Far from it. Redthread Games in my opinion has reestablished themselves as masters of storytelling. They craft compelling and complex characters who are not always easy to read. They build two worlds that are as rich and believable as our own. And then they make us choose how to shape that story.

Which brings me to the choice system. As with all choice based story driven games I can’t help but draw parallels to Telltale. For the first time though, I feel like there is a game out there who has mastered their own unique style of the genre. Where Telltale often depends on making somewhat difficult decisions in extremely short amounts of time, Redthread gives you all the time in the world to make some extremely difficult decisions.

Amazingly whether to torture was not the hardest choice I had to make.

And they are extremely difficult. More than once in the game I was faced with a choice to make and I would sit there for five minutes agonizing about what to do. These choices are not clear cut. There is no “right” or “wrong” choice but whatever one you make it will have both good and bad consequences. And indeed, I did end up making a choice which spelled disaster for a character. I then confirmed with a friend who had played the game that had I made another decision, things would have had a far different outcome but with other somewhat bad consequences.

As hard as those choices were, it’s a refreshing change of pace to not have “good” options and “bad” options laid out for me. And unlike Telltale, there were far reaching consequences to decisions even reaching back to Book 1. This all ended up in a cliffhanger that had me yelling at my screen for more. There are certainly worse ways to end a game.

Any game with this apron is a winner in my books

Finally there are the puzzles. Yes, puzzles! There really isn’t much to talk about here. Most are inventory based and straightforward. Any item you might be missing is always located near the puzzle you have to solve. The only ones that seemed to grate on my brain were a couple of fetch quests that had me traversing the city and back again. Seriously, one of them almost had me banging my head on the keyboard in despair when I learned I would have to make yet…another…trip…The aforementioned map system did not help my frustration. Part of it might be the style and engine of the game: why have such a big city if you’re not required to explore it? But there’s got to be a better way to integrate these types of puzzles.

Rebels is a wonderful and riveting installment to Dreamfall Chapters. Redthread has said that Book 3 will not be as long as Book 2, but will be far more intense. I can’t wait.