A clone learns about individuality in experimental narrative game 1000xResist

GamesAdventureA clone learns about individuality in experimental narrative game 1000xResistWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

Is throwing someone in at the deep end the best way to teach them to swim? Probably not, but it is the most fun. At least, for the observers. That’s what 1000xResist does, opening in medias res and trusting you’ll figure out how to float. It begins with one of the story’s most dramatic scenes then flashes back to the events leading up to that moment, but what’s really likely to confuse you is its setting. 1000xResist is the kind of science fiction that builds an entire future society out of projecting modern concerns to a distant point where everything has changed, with an entire history you get to puzzle out from context clues and ambiguous phrases.

(Image credit: Fellow Traveller)

Two clones sit at a bar, one wearing blue, the other orange

You play a clone granted a snazzy blue jumpsuit and the function of Watcher, denoting your role as an observer—both of your sisters and the Allmother’s memories, which Watcher explores like a sort of virtual reality. 1000xResist is a narrative game that changes its mechanics and viewpoint to suit each section of the story, so when you’re reliving the Allmother’s high school memories of the initial outbreak it becomes fixed-camera third-person like an old survival horror game. It feels like I’m back exploring Midwich Elementary in Silent Hill, even down to the barricaded dead end corridors, which suits the creepy tone of this chapter.

As the child of Hong Kong immigrants in Canada, the young Allmother is worried about fairly mundane things even as a strange pandemic begins and news stories about people claiming to have encountered aliens spread through the background of her life. She’s too busy to pay attention to all that, caught between her family’s high expectations and her own attempts to fit in, which result in casual teenage cruelty directed at a Chinese immigrant student who gravitates to her. It’s a kind of Do Clones Dream of Intergenerational Trauma?

(Image credit: Fellow Traveller)

A high school hallway lit in red

The high school mood is mirrored in the parts of the story set in the future—a miniature society of clones who are as desperate to differentiate themselves from the pack but also fit in as any teenager. They adopt varying fashion styles and hair colors, lean into different skillsets and personas. Healer acts like a caring big sister while the clone in charge of defense, called Bang Bang Fire, spouts stoner philosophy and knock-knock jokes.

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(Image credit: Fellow Traveller)

A city rises up out of the sea

1000xResist is due out early in 2024 onSteam,GOG, andEpic.

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