Broken Reality
Release Date: November 29, 2018
Developer: Dynamic Media Triad
Publisher: Digital Tribe
Price: $14.99
my playtime: 12.5 hours
I’m finding a theme against the games I enjoy. Surreal exploration in bizarre environments. This game surprised me in its length. What started as a meme morphed into an extended universe. In my head canon, this is an adventure set in the Reboot tv show. I expected a simple walking simulator through interactive frutiger aero locations, but found a 3D metroidvania in a fictional online game with one instance of meta mirror turn on the player.
The tools at your disposal are varied and materially different from the traditional tropes. A credit card, a thumbs up for “liking” things, a hyper linker (aka hookshot). There is no burying the lead here, this is another game that stands out due to its vibes, visuals, aesthetics. The story is there enough, I could call it an immersive sim if that means no story happens off camera, everything the player knows, you know.
This one really took me back to the early days of the internet. I’ve also always been very intrigued by fictional online worlds; dot hack being the easiest example. The back of the Morrowind box promised a world full of NPCs living their own life, the way they described it blew my adolescent mind. That concept felt so achievable in my head and I was spoiled by Morrowind itself. Broken Reality does not go that far, but it does create a unique world I loved to explore.
8/10
Vaporwave, vaporwave, vaporwave.
CM 3/31/25
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