The Invincible Review

The Invincible is a narrative adventure developed by Starward Industries and published by 11 Bit Studios, known for other fantastic titles like This War of Mine and Frostpunk. Adapted from a Polish novel by Stanislaw Lem (author of Solaris), The Invincible plays like the space thriller a la Deliver Us The Moon mixed with the character-driven experience seen in Firewatch.

The Invincible follows an astrobiologist Doctor Yasna, who wakes up without memory on a desolate planet called Regis III. With only her commander to guide her via radio, she seeks out the truth about the planet while searching for her estranged crew members as she herself has to fight for her own survival

Now strap on that spacesuit and keep your oxygen in check, because it’s gonna be a walk on the wild side in The Invincible.

In Space No One Can Hear You Walk

What The Invincible gets right is a fantastic way of setting up its mysterious and treacherous world by way of atmospheric storytelling. Yasna, the protagonist, wakes up on an unknown desert planet without her memories. Her communications array is damaged, she has a finite amount of oxygen, and she is estranged from her crew. It sets up disorientation and questions right off the bat.

The story slowly unfolds to reveal Yasna’s backstory and her crew’s mission on Regis III, but as we’re sent back to traversing the planet, you’ll soon realize that this adventure isn’t a survival game but a narrative one. Welcome to No Man’s Sky: Walking Simulator.

Yes, The Invincible will largely be a walking simulator for most of the game where you traverse your current environment searching for a way out of the given map onward to the next sequence. Sadly, while the story beats in general are engaging, much of the tension and stakes have been greatly reduced because you just can’t die, which takes so much away from the survival aspect of the story.

In the first half of your journey, it’s mostly finding your missing crew members to bring them back to your mothership. At that point, it becomes less about your protagonist’s stakes, but investigating the fate of the crew. What motivated me to continue walking toward the next objective was mostly to find out what happens next in the plot.

You will be given some tools throughout your journey in order to assist you in the simple missions that you receive to progress the story forward. Besides the tracker, which you will be using throughout the duration of the first part of The Invincible, many of the tools are situational in nature. You’ll use it a few times, and then they’re largely forgotten.

After a while, walking becomes a little tedious. You do get a sprint button, which allows you to move incrementally faster, however, there are no stamina bars to note how much you can use it. You’ll only know if you can’t sprint anymore with how Yasna heaves and how your walking speed significantly slows down.

As you progress further into the story, you’ll also have access to a rover, which cuts a lot of the travel time compared to walking. For the most part, the controls for it are straightforward, but you can find yourself stuck in certain crevices and rock formations, so after a while, driving will get as tedious as walking.

There’s Just Too Much Space

I really have to commend the attention to detail The Invincible puts into its setting. As it was adapted from a 1964 novel, much of the tech reminds me of Fallout and The Outer Worlds with its retro-punk look – from the spaceships, robots, and even the goofy ray guns. What’s also commendable is the planet terrain, as it really sells it to the player that you are on a desolate planet, devoid of life, and the isolation really becomes real.

For much of the first half of The Invincible, you feel the isolation as you walk through crevices and peaks of uncharted land. While much of the terrain is beautiful to look at, besides finding the members of your crew, you only have yourself and your commanding officer on the radio to talk to. It can actually get really lonely especially as the mission continues and you progressively find no signs of life. An hour of this can really be tiring and slow-moving.

The novelty ends as you reach the halfway point of the game, where you learn more about the mysteries of the planet. This works to The Invincible‘s detriment as the exploration aspect of the narrative ramps up the tedium and slowness of the gameplay. It actually discourages exploration due to the tedious controls and excessive backtracking.

While everything moves in real-time, despite setting up the immersive mood, this is highly arbitrary because you really can’t die. You do get some choices on the paths you take and dialogue choices with your commanding officer, which generates subtle branching paths for the story.

There aren’t many options for branching storytelling in the first half of The Invincible versus that in the second half of the story, and I really wished there was a skip button as replayability is generally affected by its tedious nature. Yasna’s flashbacks are entirely skippable, which is a godsend when replaying The Invincible.

As with every narrative adventure, the branching storylines allow for ways to explore the world and its complex themes, but sadly the actual gameplay is slow and long. You find yourself looking at the map most of the time as visuals tend to become uniform and confusing.

It also does not help that object interaction in the game is also difficult to navigate. There are moments when you walk around in circles to search for an object interaction, which gets frustrating. The tracker will be useful to search for collectibles, if you can call it that, later on in the game. So I find that the tools feel like they could’ve been done without though I do admit that they were pretty fun to play around with despite having no actual use.

Despite this, The Invincible is a well-adapted piece from a complex sci-fi novel that tackles bio-diversity, evolution, and ethics of exploration in an accessible way. The dialogue can be somewhat dry, but conceptually, it is quite engaging especially for sci-fi fans who love conceptual sci-fi works seen from Asimov and Bradbury’s works.

What We Liked

• Fantastic novel adaptation that allows for easy accessibility of its complex sci-fi themes.
• Branching paths allow for further exploration of the world and replayability.
• A fantastic piece that brings to life a fully realized world through atmospheric gameplay.

What We Didn’t Like

• Experience can be a slog as walking and driving are the bulk of its gameplay mechanics.
• Object interaction can be a challenge to navigate.
• Tedious progression and low stakes reduce replayability. Needs more skippable scenes.

Verdict: Wait For It…

The Invincible is a well-adapted piece that brings to life a complex sci-fi novel into a fully immersive experience. However, we’re also treated to much of its meditative and tedious aspects to create an isolated world filled with complex themes that can be satisfying to more discerning sci-fi aficionados, but as a video game, it is definitely not for everybody.

I suggest trying out a demo first before diving into The Invincible. If you’re looking for an exploratory title that scours space on diverse adventures with action and spectacle, you won’t find it here. It is more of a character study and exploring the ethics of space travel and exploration, which definitely has its niche audience.

*The Invincible was reviewed on the PS5 with a review code provided by the publisher.