2084 (PC) Early Access Review

Born out of a Game Jam, 2084 is now an early access indie title that finds itself with something to prove.  A visually stunning cyberpunk FPS, the title wears its inspirations on its sleeves; hacking mini-games and fast and kinetic movement bring back memories of old PC titles such as SystemShock and Thief.  The question quickly becomes, if the title is inspired by such classics, can it even live in their shadows?

The first noticeable aspect is that it is simply impressive visually.  When the game is turned to the highest settings and running smoothly the title feels like a current, bigger budget title.  While the world is nice to look at, though, it does have the odd issue of stuttering every now and then for no real reason—even on a fairly powerful gaming rig.  The stuttering problem always seemed random, and wasn’t when something complicated or impressive is happening, which makes it all the stranger and harder to figure out why exactly it was occurring.

The game has some kind of plot, which is fine as people seem to enjoy those, but it never really seemed to be laid out very clearly on what exactly was going on.  There certainly were many inferences that could be made about what was happening, but nothing really felt super concrete.  The same could be said about the way that the levels were designed.  Towards the end of most levels it became slightly confusing on how to progress to the next step, which seemed odd.

Also, on the list of things that were strange inside of this title were the sudden difficulty spikes that seemed to happen for no reason.  Mainly, enemy encounters happen at a slow and manageable rate.  Occasionally there are floods of them that are difficult to handle.  Both of these are perfectly fine as they are paced out fairly well.  What isn’t, is when the game sends seemingly endless floods of them a good distance from the last checkpoint, and the only option is to wade through them. 

2084 is an enjoyable title.  For anyone out there that is looking for a decent FPS that isn’t the same thing as every other Call of Duty title, this is probably the one.  While it does have its shortcomings, it should also be pointed out that it is made by a smaller team, sells for less, and is in early access.  While this isn’t the game that everyone is going to be talking about in the future, it does have something in it that will find a home with those willing to look.