After you get over your initial confusion over the word, Evotinction, its meaning, and how it fits into the game’s narrative begins to make sense. It’s a combination of the words evolve and extinction; a clashing of ideas that apply to humanity at large in the game’s narrative. At least that would be the pretentious way to say that Evotinction is about a world-threatening AI that is about to annihilate humanity.
Dr. Liu is a computer engineer and employee of HERE, an AI developer who is the world’s only hope for salvation. Unfortunately for him, autonomous AI droids are patrolling the HERE facilities. The doctor must sneak and hack through a sci-fi industrial complex to prevent the system from releasing a deadly virus.
Evotinction combines a few familiar stealth game ideas from Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, and some strategy game elements. Does everything come together and form a fresh idea? Or is this an incoherent mixture of concepts like the game’s title might imply? Find out in this Evotinction review!
EVOTINCTION
Developer: Spikewave Games
Publisher: Perpetual, Astrolabe Games, China Hero Project
Platforms: Windows PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 (reviewed)
Release Date: September 13, 2024
Price: $29.99
The best way to describe Evotinction is that it is very smartly made with limited resources and gets the most out of it. The developers must have been a small team focusing on what was possible while pushing the graphics as far as they could. Details that give away the restrictions are the lack of any facial animation. There is none because Dr. Liu is the only human character seen and he always wears a mask.
The other hint that Evotinction was made on a tight budget is the enemies are mostly simple floating ball-like droids that look like the AI cores from Portal. There isn’t much variation in the kinds of AI threats that Dr. Liu will encounter. He also has no combat abilities and causing an alert without a backup plan will end with a game over because the doctor can only take one hit.
The meat and potatoes of Evotinction is Dr. Liu’s hacking prowess thanks to fresh gear. The experience is like playing a hacking and stealth-only run for Deus Ex. Hacking is done remotely; Dr. Liu can target various accouterments in the area and make them do things or control them. This can be as simple as exploding a breaker, switching something on/off, or a little more complex like hacking a camera to read an out-of-view code.
Controls are kept very basic and Dr. Lui’s actions are mostly contextual. Being skillful at Evotinction is more about knowing what to do and less about mastering mechanics. Actions feel clicky-clacky; as if the protagonist is snapping into animations and less like the player controls him.
Making smart use of the various functions embedded in the environment is one of the many ways to distract or dispatch the Genies. Another way to bypass these droids is to hack them. Dr. Liu can equip quick hacks that manipulate Genie behaviors. This is useful, but it’s a double-edged sword because hacks leave a trace, and doing too many fills a bar that alerts the A.I.s.
Evotinction is a finely-tuned strategic stealth game once you get past its creative limitations. Dr. Liu’s physical actions are interacting with terminals, crouch-walking, using the scanner, and vaulting over certain designated ledges. He is admittedly very restrictive when he should be able to do more. It isn’t like he is freakishly obese and he seems fit enough to be able to climb more ledges than the environment would imply.
There are other options for getting around the droids, like manually turning them off with the handheld barcode reader. This is trickier than it seems because Dr. Liu has to be very close to the back of the machine to turn them off. However, this is one of the few methods of dispatch that won’t leave any trace… unless the disabled A.I. was in communication with another A.I., which would alert it.
Evotinction is surprising because of the wide range of options available for hacking. As the story unfolds, the gameplay gets deeper and the environment becomes more complicated with more A.I.s roaming. Every area is a chunk part of a large connected environment that branches from a hub.
Between stealth areas, the game lets you know that you are in a safe room where players can breathe and respite while purchasing upgrades. Sometimes it almost feels like a series of Metal Gear Solid VR Mission rooms connected. Every area is contained thanks to the safe rooms separating the stealth zones.
Evotinction’s visuals impress and feel like a polished product. Everything is slick, clean, and high-tech; like the game is set inside a Hong Kong convention center. Signs have holographic and 3D displays. Everywhere you look are LED light strips and panels. The HERE facility is part brutalist nightmare, industrial labyrinth, and dystopian office space. The utter lack of humanity is the point of the bleak future.
The high-stakes stealth and tension while moving through areas while hacking machines are thrilling, but Dr. Lui is not a cool character. There are Visual Novel sequences between chapters where players choose dialogue options where the game fleshes out the protagonist, but it’s completely disconnected from the core experience.
Evotinction‘s music is low and ambient. This game has a great sneaking-around-and-up-to-no-good plucky soundtrack that fits the tense, cold, sci-fi atmosphere. The English voice acting is also solid and relies on British performers. Dr. Liu’s voice actor gives a gruff and weary performance and sounds like a worn-out guy at the end of his rope. The cast is so convincing that you might not realize Evotinction was intended to be a Chinese product.
Stealth games are rare these days and Evotinction is a worthy effort that leans more in the direction of strategy than action. The graphics look great thanks to the artists being responsible with their limitations and the music elevates the atmosphere. The protagonist is unrealistically limited by what the game demands and the enemy designs are uninspired. Yet, Evotinction is a game I admire for its ingenuity and tactical gameplay.
EVOTINCTION was reviewed on a PlayStation 5 using a code provided by Perpetual. You can find additional information about Niche Gamer’s review/ethics policy here. EVOTINCTION is now available for PC (via Steam), PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5.
