1000xRESIST review

• Reviews by Matt Aukamp
• Published:

Though surely not for everyone, there are many reasons you may not be able to withstand the allure of this surreal sci-fi adventure

Dystopic fiction often stems from trauma. It blossomed in the wake of the Industrial Revolution, the atomic bomb, and the 9/11 tragedy, and now we’re just starting to see the effects of the pandemic play out in our art. 1000XRESIST by Sunset Visitor is, very directly, a story about processing the tragedy of COVID-19. However, its perspective also serves to reflect far more than that, encompassing a variety of personal themes like intergenerational trauma, diaspora, and the peaks and valleys of adolescence. It reflects the political themes of the 21st century as the flaws of democracy begin to show and fascism rises around the globe. It’s a dense piece of literary writing… and also just a cool friggin’ video game. 

I don’t want to talk too much about the story, since its design is arguably driven by figuring out what the hell is going on, but I don’t want to leave people completely without context either. So, if you’d rather dive in knowing as little as possible, you might want to skip ahead a few paragraphs. But if you’re curious, I’ll outline some of the more basic plot elements, characters, and themes that would otherwise take you some time to piece together in-game.

You begin the game as Watcher, one of six “Sisters” defined by their function (with brightly colored costumes and names like Bang Bang Fire, Healer, and Knower) in a clearly futuristic society. It’s been some time since an apocalyptic event, and the fragment of society that remains is a fully female world of slightly varying clones of the ALLMOTHER. You learn, fairly early on, that humanity fell to both a devastating pandemic that caused almost everyone to basically cry themselves to death, and a mass destruction event caused by giant glowing beings known as Occupants. 

Centuries earlier, Iris, the young daughter of two Chinese immigrants growing up in Canada, was one of the few people immune to the disease. Iris had a complicated relationship with her mother and with another Chinese immigrant in her school who was struggling both to enculturate and to deal with her obsessive romantic feelings toward Iris. With all the angst of a teen girl dealing with racial and sexual identity, family, and high school, Iris pushed these people away, just as she was introduced to an organization that wanted to study her immunity. The world will go on to be shaped and re-shaped by the decisions made by Iris, who would eventually become the ALLMOTHER of the postapocalyptic world. Watcher must learn how and why this all happened. 

1000xRESIST makes the political personal and the personal political. Through interactive flashback sequences, you’ll watch Iris be forced to make world-altering decisions that hinge on the emotions of a teenager. Her parents carry with them the trauma of participating in the Hong Kong protests of 2019, which puts pressure on their relationship with their daughter, their marriage, and a rapidly deteriorating apocalyptic world. Iris’s relationships with her mother, her admirer, and the government directly affect the way she shapes the society of the future. The mistakes she makes as a child haunt her for decades, and her emotional response to trauma creates ripples down the ages of dystopia that make up the game’s world. You get to see these ripples through various time periods, both through Communions with the past as Watcher (more on those shortly) and through a massive time-jump halfway through the game that puts you into the character and significantly different world of Blue.

[End of potential story spoilers]

The strengths of the narrative lie in its deeply emotional, cultural, and political subtext, and in its ability to juke hard in directions you could never see coming. There were many times when playing this game that I could not believe what I was seeing and doing. Plot twists are so unique and so drastic that you’ll find yourself unmoored from the familiarity of conventional story structure and gawping at the eruption of fractures in the status quo. The revelations, likewise, run the gamut between light intrigue and earth-shattering. The overall impact will stick with you long after playing, as you not only puzzle out pieces of the story, but also the messages that the developers were trying to convey. 

1000xRESIST

Genre:	Mystery, Science Fiction
Presentation:	Realtime 3D
Theme:	Futuristic
Perspective:	Third-Person
Graphic Style:	Illustrated realism
Gameplay:	Quest, Visual novel
Control:	Direct Control
Game Length:	Long (more than 10 hours)
Action:	Platforming
Difficulty:	Low

1000xRESIST does not have much in the way of traditional gameplay. The experience largely consists of two modes. In the first, you’re walking or running around one of the game’s stunning environments. Perhaps it’s the massive complex of spacious futuristic architecture known as “The Orchard,” its white and grey walkways lit by bright fluorescent lighting and periodically interrupted by lush gardens or rooms aglow with bright neon colors. Or it could be the dingy, cramped “Old Town,” glowing signs illuminating its tight, dark corridors. As Watcher—and, later, Blue—you spend a lot of time simply going back and forth, talking to the many Sisters peppering each map. Your companion, Secretary, a floating piece of glowing blue geometry with the voice of a child, hovers over characters or points of interest, allowing you to interact with them via a button press. Looking at scenery and talking to others, you slowly piece together the intricate narrative through often-cryptic dialogue, usually missing context. One thing that characters rarely do in this game is explain themselves fully, which makes for a world that feels real and natural, but leaves you in the dark, trying to grasp at the edges of a labyrinthine tale.

The other primary mode of gameplay is through Communing with fellow Sisters. In these segments, you and another character are pulled into memories of the past. Scenes of the ALLMOTHER’s life in 2047 manifest around you, obscured to varying degrees with dreamlike qualities. Mimicking the subjective nature of memory itself, things are sometimes out of place. Settings and locations are abstract and often depicted in breathtakingly gorgeous visuals. People speak in odd ways. Lights or landscapes are used symbolically to represent a mood or highlight important moments. 

Like in the Orchard, you run around looking at objects and talking to characters—sometimes serving more as a stand-in to trigger conversations that happened originally, but other times as if you’re really there, occupying that space and time. However, in many scenes you also gain secondary “powers.” You can advance or rewind to different points in time using a casual wave of the hand (using the shoulder buttons if playing with a controller), hopping back and forth between different scenes—or moments of the same scene—labeled with names and numbers in the lower left corner of the screen. You will also find yourself targeting and zipping between floating patterns of light that manifest at certain times, pulling you like magnetic grappling hooks through the air. With a thumbstick, you target a glowing spot, and with your trigger button, you fling yourself from one to the next in mid-air. The moments possibly serve more as a metaphor for mental synapses connecting than an actual gameplay challenge. If you miss a target and fall, you just start back on the ground and go again.

For the most part, the experience is a lot like a visual novel presented in free-roaming 3D environments. There are a few dialogue puzzles that require interpreting poetic phrases or remembering details. One timed sequence involves simply performing the grappling hook maneuver to navigate a space in a limited time. And there are a few choices that may be significant to your personal interpretation of the characters, but not really to the narrative itself. That is, until the very end of the game, when seven different endings are available. But even in this setting, most of the “bad” endings trigger an immediate reset, allowing you to try again until you reach one of the “good” endings. Also, the game does employ a limited number of save slots, so you can revisit branching choices several times to experience different dialogue.

What makes 1000xRESIST the work of art it is (besides its amazing visual character and set designs) are the story choices it makes. The game starts in medias res with a murder, barely hinting at only the slightest bit of context toward what any of this means. Afterwards, it flashes back to dole out, in bits and pieces, who these characters are, the world they live in, and where it all came from. You might find yourself overwhelmed at first by titles like “Fixer” and “Occupants,” terminology like “Communion” or “Shells,” or phrases like “Six to One” or “Hekki Grace.” I can see that turning off players, as you spend the first few hours of the game holding onto the handlebars and running to keep up as the story chugs forward. It doesn’t stop to make sure you’ve figured it all out and adjusted to new information, it just expects you to catch up as you go. This, understandably, is not for everyone, but clarity does come with time.

There is a juxtaposition here that may already be clear, between the experience of 1000xRESIST and the story of 1000xRESIST. The experience of controlling your character through the game is quiet, evenly paced, and even soothing. The light padding of footsteps on metal floors and soft futuristic bleeps of Secretary highlighting points of interest for you punctuate your smooth navigation of beautiful and memorable environments, while the ethereal soundtrack composed of hypnotic pianos and synths plays in the background. The incredibly naturalistic voice acting is often soft and comforting. Aside from some extremely dramatic moments, the game is generally awash with a soporific atmosphere. It’s the story that kicks you in the teeth. Over and over again.

Final Verdict

1000xRESIST may sound pretty overwhelming, and that’s not without merit. Over the course of ten or so hours, it’s like diving into a classic novel, or that artsy anime that someone you know says, “I don’t usually like anime, but dude you have to watch this.” There’s a lot to absorb, and the game doesn’t dumb any of it down. But the amazing characters and settings will pull you in even if you feel bewildered by the mystery of it all, and as you slowly begin to unravel the dense narrative strands in front of you, you’ll find something of true value. Like any of the greatest pieces of art, it’s worth the effort.

Matt played his own copy of 1000xRESIST on PC via the Steam Deck.

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