Were playing on PC

Alternative history is a truly endless source of captivating plots. We take any at least some significant event, ask ourselves the question “What if?”, And now we have an entertaining introduction. And when the Second World War, which dragged on for decades and ended with a nuclear apocalypse, becomes the key turning point, you are preparing for something large-scale. The authors of Paradise Lost, however, take a different path – a powerful seed serves only as a background for a much more intimate and personal adventure.

I’m going on vote

Sometimes it feels like you missed the shelter dwellers for literally five minutes.

A boy of fourteen named Shimon slams a huge hatch behind him and is left alone with the frightening darkness. The lighter only illuminates a small patch, so you have to go almost blindly. At first it seems as if you have to look for fuel and spend the resource carefully, but the impression is deceiving. As soon as the hero gets to the first lighted hall, he will no longer use the lighter. Paradise Lost doesn’t offer a mechanic harder than reading a note and pulling a lever. The game is all about storytelling and atmosphere. 

Shimon explores a mysterious German bunker with the specific goal of learning more about his mother. The only clue is her photo with some man in front of the logo, which is found everywhere here. On the way to the goal, the hero, of course, learns about the fate of an abandoned shelter – a monument to both a human genius and an inhuman regime that brought people to the brink of extinction. The game tries to pronounce the main events out loud, but most of the nuances are presented more subtly – through the environment, objects and notes scattered everywhere.

Paradise Lost is deliberately unhurried. Shimon slowly wanders through the empty premises, and by pressing a special button he can go to a quick step. They don’t even allow you to run, otherwise you suddenly miss an important detail. The surroundings really want to admire. The interiors are beautifully designed and full of details that, like pieces of a puzzle, add up to short stories about the inhabitants of the bunker and the goals of the Nazis who built it.

Several flashbacks will show you what the outside world has become

The structure goes deep underground. Each floor has its own style and serves a specific purpose. The upper levels are the arrivals area and residential complexes. Further there are engineering compartments, storage facilities and systems to ensure life in an isolated space, and at the very depths of Shimon, laboratories with dark secrets and the technological “heart” of the monumental structure await.

It is really important to study the environment, because without this, the whole picture will not work. Even the chronology of military events has to be isolated from rare hints and newspaper headlines. The developers deliberately turn the collection of the plot puzzle into a basic mechanic that happens only in your head. Therefore, even the smallest spoilers of the way the story unfolds can ruin your experience.

But the intrigue does not last until the finale – the main turn is easily guessed in the middle of the path. Long before the credits, I understood not only how it would end, but what the choice would be before Shimon, and got into the top ten. On the other hand, I still enjoyed it. This is what distinguishes a high-quality story – even knowing the ending, it is still interesting to follow the story and build a context from the little things that fill the world.

The bunker was built using the most advanced technologies

To give a complete picture of Paradise Lost, you still have to reveal one of the cards. However, it is unlikely that the fact that the bunker is not as abandoned as it seems at first will be such a revelation – even the release trailer speaks about it openly. Otherwise it would be boring. Soon enough, Shimon learns that somewhere in the bowels of the shelter, the girl Eva is locked. The heroes often talk using the local radio communication system.

Sometimes the game prompts you to choose an answer, which brings back memories of Firewatch. These dialogues will not affect the finale in any way, they will only determine the dynamics of the relationship between the characters. How it all ends, you decide in any case in the last episode.

Paradise Lost is not so much a video game in the usual sense as an art installation in half with an interactive story. On the one hand, it is completely devoid of complex gameplay: go ahead, sometimes pull the switches, look for notes. On the other hand, Paradise Lost could hardly work in any other type of media, so much it relies on the leisurely pace and careful study of the environment through which the story is told.

The game will take you to unexpected places

* * *

Paradise Lost is primarily for those who are looking for an interesting storytelling in the game and a thick atmosphere in which you want to get bogged down for an evening or two. There is nothing else in it and, in principle, nothing is needed. Perhaps a couple of riddles could add variety to this unhurried and melancholic story.

Advantages:

• detailed bunker;
• events of alternative history are interesting to piece together;
• captivating storytelling.

Disadvantages:

• lack of intrigue – the main turn is easily guessed halfway;
• mechanics cannot offer even elementary riddles.

Evaluation: 7,0/10

More about the grading system