A Way Out - Thoughts

[contains minor spoilers]

I'm not sure where I stand on A Way Out—I've been left kind of... confused and unimpressed. The premise behind the game is amazing: it's a cinematic, co-op-only campaign about busting out of jail and getting sweet revenge. Despite both characters having their own distinct personalities and motivations, there's a lot about them that just doesn't mesh with the gameplay or the story. Honestly, A Way Out makes a good case for why realistic dialogue was removed for Brothers.

Hazelight's first game, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, is an excellent experience about two kids on a journey to save their father. What sticks out to the player the most throughout it (besides the purposefully awkward controls) are the moments of levity the brothers can engage in, as well as the gut-wrenching ending. Strangely, A Way Out unabashedly mimics these two facets, but comes across as more confused and dissonant due to it.

The main characters being playful and absent-minded in Brothers is great because they're literal kids. But in A Way Out, a mere day after escaping from prison, our convict protagonists invade someone's house and can... play piano? Smell flowers? Build a house of cards? The miscellaneous activities the players can partake in are fun, but they detract from the urgency of the story. Players can opt to avoid silly things, but then they risk missing out on dialogue and character flavor—the ingredients the game is built around. And humdrum activities like watching TV or petting an animal may be within the realm of realism, winding up a sewing machine serves no purpose other than to say, "Hey, look what we programmed into the game!"

Likewise the dialogue isn't natural in a plot that demands it to be. Tonally, Hazelight hits on all the right points, but conversations are frequently stilted, weird, and forced. A Way Out is written with the script consciously in mind, instead of an ear for how conversations should carry from line to line. And even when the dialogue doesn't sound foreign, there's usually not enough substance to what's being said. Most of the game (barring the final act) is played at face value, giving you few reasons to invest in its characters or loathe its cartoonish antagonist. You're better off enjoying the characters for their archetypes and thinking of the story as a pulpy 70s revenge flick.

The reason I'm so down A Way Out isn't because it's terrible; the game was just surprisingly mediocre. It looks alright and is entertaining for the most part, a couple of good co-op ideas popping up now and then. For example, there are occasionally forks in the road that ask the players if they want to solve a problem quietly or with violence, and being forced to row a boat together provides for some good laughs. The cinematic framing of the cutscenes and gameplay—which allow you to view the world through both character lenses at once—is a brilliant touch as well. There's also some fun gunfights the players get to partake in, which is laudable considering this is Hazelight's first crack at that style. However, at the heart of A Way Out is its narrative and its protagonists, and neither one really escapes being a shortcoming of the game.

I like the director behind the game, Josef Fares. I think he's a strong visionary that handles tragedy in his works very well. I believe the problem, however, is that he's a subpar writer—or at least, A Way Out has shown that the script needed more revisions and a serious editor. There's a little bit too much residual DNA left from Brothers here, and while the final act is the strongest moment of the game, the intrigue it brings is too little too late, and honestly comes across as forced. A Way Out's template could be used to make an interesting game in the future, but 'll likely always remember it as a goofy co-op adventure that left me scratching my head.

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Images obtained from: ea.com, ShyGuys.io, VentureBeat.com, TechRadar.com