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'We Happy Few' has a trippy PSVR teaser
We Happy Few is just around the corner after years of waiting, but you don't have to wait until August 10th to get a feel for its drug-filled dystopia if you have a PlayStation VR headset. Compulsion games has released a free PSVR-only side story, Uncle Jack Live VR, that turns you into a guest producer for its namesake broadcaster and propagandist. You're supposed to pick the 'right' news stories for Jack as he encourages people to keep taking the mind-altering Joy drug, all the while fighting an outbreak of Downers (i.e. normal people) at the broadcast center.
We Happy Few's dystopia is held together by drugs and denial
We Happy Few has come to fruition in a unique way. Compulsion Games first captured attentions in 2015 with its creepy, atmospheric trailers, also launching a successful Kickstarter campaign to fund continued development of its dystopian title. The following year, the game launched on early access programs for both the PC and Xbox One. It was a procedurally generated, roguelike survival game, intended to be relatively short and replayable. Only, the world Compulsion had built was too alluring. The people wanted more, being particularly fond of the game's quirky characters and the player's interactions with them. And so We Happy Few has evolved over time to become a substantial story-driven adventure. At launch on August 10th, the game will follow three very different playable characters that, for one reason or another, don't fit in with their ever-jolly neighbors.
Psychedelic survival game 'We Happy Few' arrives August 10
Remember We Happy Few? That game about a small English town hooked on hallucinogenic drugs? Well, after a bunch of agonizing delays the indie adventure has a new release date for Xbox One: August 10th. That's a clarification of the "summer" window that developer Compulsion Games gave in January. Oh, and today Microsoft also announced that it had bought the studio outright (among a bunch of other developers). To mark the two announcements, Compulsion Games showed off a new trailer during today's Xbox press conference. It's beautiful, creepy and intriguing, showing off more of the world and its unsettling alternate history timeline.
Survival game ’We Happy Few’ is delayed until summer
We've been excited about We Happy Few, the paranoia-fueled horror survival game set in a small English town, for awhile now. But it looks like we're going to have to wait a bit longer to play it. While the game was originally scheduled to be released in April 2018, it's been pushed back to sometimes this summer.
How 'We Happy Few' plans to avoid the pitfalls of 'No Man's Sky'
The 1960s dystopia of We Happy Few will hit Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC on April 13th, 2018, thanks to Compulsion Games and Gearbox, the studio best known for Borderlands. You're not hallucinating -- We Happy Few did already come to Xbox One and Steam as an early-access game, but now it's ready for prime time. The full experience, priced at $60 and featuring a rich storyline starring three separate characters, will be ready to roll next spring. That's all fine and dandy, but We Happy Few's joyous release-date news hides a deeper development story. Compulsion has followed a long, winding road to April 2018, and the first major twist in that path came early in the development process.
Survival horror game 'We Happy Few' is becoming a movie
Video game movies tend to struggle in part because of their stories. What sounds good for an adventure or first-person shooter can fall flat when you're asked to construct a cinematic narrative around it. However, you might get something better this time around. Variety has learned that We Happy Few, Compulsion Games' paranoia-fueled tale of an English town gone terribly wrong, is becoming a movie. The company behind the Pitch Perfect movies, Gold Circle Entertainment, is working with dj2 Entertainment (also working on the Sleeping Dogs movie) to make it a reality.
What's on your HDTV: 'Sharknado,' 'MADtv'
Apparently Syfy has some Shark Week jealousy, as it's leading up to the debut of Sharknado 4 with a week full of shark movies. That's one alternative to the prime time DNC coverage on the networks this week, but also of note is the return of MADtv on CW. Gamers can try out a preview of We Happy Few on Xbox One, or DLC arriving for Fallout 4 or Minecraft: Story Mode. On Blu-ray, viewers can see Criminal in Ultra HD, or check out the entirely-filmed-in-first-person Hardcore Henry, and Netflix premieres the movie Tallulah. Look after the break to check out each day's highlights, including trailers and let us know what you think (or what we missed).
Survival in 'We Happy Few' starts next week
We Happy Few was one of my coworker Jess Conditt's favorite games from E3 this year, and for good reason: its alt-history, drug-and-paranoia fueled take on a dystopia is unlike anything we've ever seen. But how did it all begin? With a question, according to an Xbox Wire post by developer Compulsion Games' Sam Abbott. The team was trying to figure out how to make a bigger game than its first (Contrast, which made its debut with the PlayStation 4) but wanted to keep its staff size from ballooning. That's why Compulsion turned to procedural generation -- akin to No Man's Sky -- for its 1964 English city.
Get a terrifying taste of 'We Happy Few' on Steam, Xbox this holiday
We Happy Few isn't necessarily a terrifying first-person stealth and combat game. So far, it's more of a bone-chilling, creepy, deeply unsettling experience. In other words: It looks great. Today, there's good news for anyone who pledged to the game's successful $330,000 Kickstarter, or anyone in the market for a drug-fueled romp through a fictional 1960s English town. We Happy Few will hit Steam Early Access and Xbox Game Preview at the same time this holiday season, Compulsion founder Guillaume Provost tells Engadget.
JXE Streams: An early, eerie look at 'We Happy Few'
Drugs, check. Dystopia, check. An alternative 1960s English town with a terrifying history, check. We Happy Few ticks a lot of my boxes in its premise alone, plus the art direction seems spot-on and the characters already feel real. Take Uncle Jack for example: He's a talk-show host with a permanent smile fixed on his painted face, and he says things like, "Of course, none of us had to do anything terrible when the Germans were here. No, no. At least, I can't remember anything. Can you?" And then he laughs in a way that suggests, yes, everyone in this small English town definitely did something awful. One thing remains unclear about We Happy Few so far: How it plays. We're going to find out today live on Twitch with a super-early, pre-alpha build of the game. Even though Compulsion still has to add more AI behaviors, world-building elements, combat mechanics and other features, they've given us the go-ahead to show off the early world of Wellington Wells. Join us at 3:30PM ET / 12:30PM PT right here, on the Engadget Gaming homepage or at Twitch.tv/Joystiq.
Drugs and dystopia in 1960s England: 'We Happy Few' hits Kickstarter
We Happy Few takes place in 1964 in the isolated English town of Wellington Wells. On the surface, it's an ideal place, filled with smiling residents and all the conveniences of retro-modern technology. But Wellington Wells hides a dark and terrifying secret: During the German occupation of World War II, the citizens had to do something so awful that they devised a drug to make them forget their actions and guilt. The drug, Joy, makes the Wellies friendly and complacent, unless they encounter someone who isn't dosing; that's when they turn violent and beat any "Downers" into submission (or death). The town is on the brink of collapse and its residents are starving, but everyone keeps on smiling -- or else.
BioShock shakes hands with Stepford in 'We Happy Few'
Smile for the camera -- and for the TV, and during the walk to the store, and while you're sitting in the living room, in the dark, all alone. Smile, because if you don't, they will come for you. That's the story behind the first trailer for We Happy Few, the new game from Compulsion Studios, maker of PlayStation 4 launch game Contrast. We Happy Few features a "drug-fueled, retrofuturistic city in an alternative 1960s England," filled with citizens with permanent smiles literally affixed to their faces. It's creepy, unsettling and cheerful all at the same time. Think BioShock with a splash of V for Vendetta and a smattering of picture-perfect Stepford. "I will say that Bioshock wasn't a direct inspiration, it's just that our interests have kind of always aligned with Irrational's games (people made the same comparison with Contrast)," Compulsion marketing director Sam Abbott says. "It's a pretty daunting comparison, given that we're less than one-tenth their size."
