Title: We Happy Few – We All Fall Down DLC
Available on: Xbox One, PS4, PC
Developer: Compulsion Games
Publisher: Gearbox Publishing
Genre: Action-Adventure, Survival Horror
Version Tested: Xbox One
Official Site: Compulsion Games
Release Date: November 19, 2019
Where to Buy: Microsoft Store, PSN Store, Steam, GOG.com
We Happy Few‘s long and winding road appears to be over. With the release of We All Fall Down, the game and extra content have reached their conclusion. One of the things the developers at Compulsion Games wanted to do with their DLC packs is addressing things they didn’t in the core game.
That meant trying to polish up mechanics. That also means bringing new story aspects that weren’t covered in the original. With We All Fall Down, the developers say they wanted to make it a simpler game. The front and center of this piece of DLC is that survival aspects have been removed. This is supposed to allow gamers to just grab a controller and play through the story this time around.
It appears they did pull that off. The problem is they might have scaled things down just a little too much.
In We All Fall Down, you play as Victoria Byng. Once one of the biggest advocates of the drug Joy, she’s starting to realize the real dangers of an entire populace being addicted to the substance. Now she’s dedicated to ridding Wellington Wells of Joy once and for all.
Going Looking For Antique Relics Next
One of the things We Happy Few DLCs offers is not only new characters to play as, but new weapons to us. In the second DLC pack, Lightbearer, the weapon is a funky guitar. This time around it’s a bullwhip reminiscent of Indiana Jones.
Using this tool, you can fight off enemies with relative ease. You can also get around the rooftops and other obstacles in Wellington Wells. It’s a fun weapon to use and it’s an interesting tool. Unfortunately, Compulsion hit their peak with the guitar offered in Lightbearer.
There was something really fun about playing some riffs and having your enemies swoon. The whip allows you to keep your distance from those you are fighting but it doesn’t really have its own feel to it. It’s simply not as fun. Considering We All Fall Down came several months after Lightbearer, it’s a bit disappointing they couldn’t come up with a weapon that had the same kind of originality.
Where’s the story?
When it comes to DLC for We Happy Few, everything is going to be compared to Lightbearer. That’s because the developers seemed to genuinely have fun with that rather trippy installment.
By contrast, it feels like in We All Fall Down, compulsion was just ready to be done with this world. Where the character in the previous DLC was completely filled out, without needing a bunch of exposition, Victoria seems pretty hollow.
Why exactly she’s going on the question she’s going on isn’t particularly clear for most of the game either. We know she’s detoxing and we know she realizes that Joy is bad. It’s just not clear why she thinks it’s so bad.
We All Fall Down could have taken what made Lightbearer work so well. Instead, it seems to have largely thrown it away and started over. I’m not entirely sure why the developers thought they needed to do that.
Considering how close We Happy Few came to being a really, really good game, it shouldn’t surprise. The developers seemed to have a problem deciding exactly what they wanted to do with the game. They also seemed to have a problem understand what they wanted to do with their DLC.
There’s very little doubt that most of the post-release content has been an improvement. In some regards, the lack of a real story for We All Fall Down is a repeat of the earlier problems.
The End of An Era
With the release of We All Fall Down, the story of We Happy Few has come to an end. The story was an interesting one about an alternate reality where an entire region decided they simply weren’t going to face the horrors of their reality. There was a message to be told.
Compulsion and Gearbox never really managed to tell that story all that well. From the beginning, it appeared as though they wanted to offer up another kind of BioShock: Infinite. To some degree, the story of Victoria Byng is similar to the hero in that game. She’s the villain who turned a person who saves everyone in the end.
The problem is that it just doesn’t follow through. The same can be said for We All Fall Down.
It’s the ultimate end to the story but it doesn’t quite give it the punch one would hope. That doesn’t make it a bad story. There’s still plenty of fun. The puzzle-solving is actually quite a bit better than what was required in Lightbearer. It just doesn’t feel like the grand finale We Happy Few devs were hoping it would be.
Verdict: We All Fall Down wants to close up the story of We Happy Few in the best way possible. It definitely puts an end to the story, but there seems to be something lacking. It’s not a bad game. There are fun elements. But this doesn’t feel like the end of the story it was meant to be when it was released.
We Happy Few - We All Fall Down Review
New story keeps everything fresh
Mechanics allow you to charge ahead
Whip is a fun tool
Wonky mechanics can lead to frustration
Falls short of previous DLC
Story seems rushed
