After years of development, We Happy Few is out now on PC and console. Taking place during an alternative world of the World War II era, you play as three main characters who are residents of Wellington Wells. A city in which its inhabitants are doped up on literal happy pills known as Joy, as several characters within the world come to the realization of how their city truly operate dark and terrible truths begin to unfold.

We Happy Few is a 2018 action-adventure game, it is developed by Compulsion Games and published by Gearbox Publishing, it is currently available on PC, Playstation 4, and Xbox One.

Editor’s Note: A Xbox One review code was provided by Gearbox Publishing in support of this review. 

We Happy Few wants to bring you a little bit of joy with a lot of madness.

After spending a couple of years on Early Access, We Happy Few is now in it’s full release to the public. Based on an alternative WWII era timeline, you start the game as a character named Arthur who begins to discover the ugly truth of his home town and it’s residents doped up on a drug known as Joy which turns every situation, especially the bad ones into a joyish occasion (as the name would suggest). This is proven in the first opening minutes of the game which provides a very dark first clue into what’s really going on within the town of Wellington Wells.

A story of dark findings hidden behind a fairy tale illusion.

THE GOOD: One thing I’ve enjoyed from We Happy Few is the story. From a writing perspective it’s a very solid and entertaining narrative with some fun ideas. I would have liked it more if the opening choice between staying on Joy and choosing to ignore it’s use would have had more of an alternative direction between the two depending on your choice. Gameplay is your standard action-RPG mechanics. There’s a meter for stamina, crafting, and you can use weapons collected & crafted throughout the game or use hand to hand combat. You can also craft useful items to help you survive such as bobby pins to pick locks, bottles for water, and other things.

Surviving in this survival action game can be a bit tiresome.

Going back to the story, I think it’s great to expand it through the use of multiple characters (a grand total of three). Each of whom have their own respective story and attributes between them. To give a bit of an idea of this without getting too spoilery, Arthur; the character you lead with is a melee expert, but the other two characters may be awful at melee combat and have to use other skills to survive. The art direction is creepily charming with an almost claymation like vibe for the animation, which works well for the horror tone it goes for.

“Have you taken your Joy?”

THE BAD: The stamina meter is annoying as hell, running tires you out in a matter of moments regardless of who you’re playing as. Though in a way it does sort of force you to strategize with Arthur, which in that regard it’s fine it’s all the other times you need it that makes the Arthur excuse rather pointless. There’s a lot of bugs and clipping issues including some progress breaking ones that will cause you to reload a save point, if you were smart enough to manually save before a big checkpoint in the game.

A very solid game that needs a little bit of help.

OVERALL THOUGHTS: As it currently stands We Happy Few is a good game and when you first put a few hours into the game you really want to love it. The technical issues just hold it back from feeling like a complete experience rather frequently. I feel like by the time a good sale for the game comes along Gearbox will have a number of the bugs worked out at which point the game will undoubtedly be a great experience, but for now I’d definitely recommend a “maybe later” to give it a good playthrough.