A videogame, or more than that? An experience everyone should have at some point, in my honest opinion. One of the best indie games of last year, and one of the most incredible experiences I've had in this artform.
There really is not a lot I can say about this that hasnât been said already by a lot of people. Everyone who plays it has to react to it in one way or another.
1000xRESIST can be described as a story-driven 3D adventure game, and while it would be technically correct, I would be doing a disservice to what this game manages to achieve. Althought itâs tehcnically true, purely from a gameplay perspective.
This game was developed by a group of theater actors who didnât have a lot of work to do during the pandemic, so they teamed up to learn game development, and started working on this game as their first venture into this artform.
I am writing this, without doing something I really wish to do right now, which is to find every piece of writing, video or audio from people who have played this game before. I already listened to many of the episodes of Into The Aether that brought it up, including their 2024 Game of The Year Spectacular
Right now I just want to write down my thoughts on my own mind, which has already been altered by a lot of external influences anyway so whatever, bias and all that.
1000xRESIST game art
Story
1000xRESIST tells us a story of a dystopian future where all of humanity has been wiped out by a deadly virus, that came along an alien species (more like, cosmical entities beyond our understanding) known as The Occupants.
The last remains of Humanity can be found in a society of clones, all from a single girl, Iris, who is immune to the virus, and cannot perish or age. Overtime she became a sort of deity among her clones, and came to be known as the ALLMOTHER.
The clones are divided in groups, they canât die of age either, but they are not immune to the virus, having to wear special facemasks and suits. Each of them is led by a Sister. There are six main Sisters: Principal, who is in charge of the whole thing, Knower, in charge of the library and keeping archives, Healer, healthcare, and looks for a cure for the virus, Fixer, who maintains the infrastructure, Bang Bang Fire, in charge of defense and monitoring the Occupants activity, and Watcher, whose job is to look, and observe. Each of them, named after their function.
The rest of the clones are âshellsâ and they are also assigned a function at birth, and train constantly so they can, one day, become a Sister too. All of them are living in an underground structure known as The Orchard.
When a Sister is deemed worthy, they are called via train to join the ALLMOTHER on the Other Side. The train tracks are a circle with no beginning or end, the track to the Other Side is only revealed to those who are chosen.
The game begins when Principal asks Watcher to perform her First Communion. This is a process where she can experience the life of the ALLMOTHER before she became their deity, she will learn how her past unfolds, and slowly realize that things are not what they seem.
Gameplay
The game is divided in chapters, most of them represents a Communion with a different sister. Before a communion, you can wander around in the Orchard and catch up with the shells and other Sisters, they will talk about a lot of things, all of them interesting in their own right. I genuinely canât think of another game where I wanted to talk to absolutely everyone just to see what new piece of data I could use, that could help me figure out the puzzle of what is even going on.
Inside a Communion, everyone around you will see you as Iris, and each memory is a bizarre retelling of the past. You can move around, do some platforming sections, and complete simple tasks, like finding certain people to talk to, or reaching a destination.
I feel like when I type it out, the game sounds boring as hell, like itâs nothing but a walking simulator with a couple extra things. You can think that, if you want. This is not a challenging platformer, itâs not filled with insane action moments, it doesnât require constant trial and error or feature the best animation ever, it does not feature skills or leveling up or anything a regular game might have.
There is a couple of interesting mechanics here. During some gameplay sections, you can move across time in the same room, this is useful at first to get pass some obstacles that might be present in in a certain moment, but not in the future. This is also a narrative tool, that will let you progress through a memory and live it through and connect certain bits with others found in a different time.
The most common platforming mechanic is a sort of long jump that can be performed when focusing on some points in the environment, this is a way to traverse quick in some events, but also to avoid falling on bottomless areas where you have to perform these jumps multiple times.
There are other aspects to both of these mechanics and some others that Iâd rather not mention much, since they are heavily intertwined with the story and themes of the game.
Art
The game features a cell-shaded look for the most part, but the art direction goes to absolutely crazy places some times. The design of the main hub, the design of the clones, the different camera angles, the different points of view of the character, everything is done on purpose.
One of the few things some might find annoying, is the lack of animations, for the voice active, or at all. Multiple times the characters will just be still, with no motion, and you might be lead to believe this is just because of money constraints or something like that. Honestly, thatâs probably a reason, but after you accept that, you will notice how all the positions and the ways the developers worked around every limitation, ends up enhancing the experience in a different way
I played the Switch version, and it is definitely not the best way to play the game. Some parts of the game had weird aliasing, and the framerate was not consistent sometimes. I honestly didnât care at all, and totally enjoyed my time with the game, despite a couple slow load times.
The whole game is a work of art.
One of the first shocking scenes in the game, I almost did not show gameplay, but this is in the trailer so I will put it here anyway
Audio
The voice acting is fantastic, I really, really enjoyed it. It is a very raw and personal style, which will contain some mumbling and some weird performances from time to time, but they will fit the narrative at hand every time.
Honestly I couldnât skip any of the dialogue, it was just so well timed, and it felt like it added so much character and gravitas to even the simplest moments of the plot.
The sountrack proved to be incredibly well made, at first it seemed like it was just going to be some perfectly serviceable atmospherical themes, but there will be more variety once the story moves forward and it completely hit me in the feels many, many times. The sudden changes in some of the chapters are handled incredibly and the music enhances the whole thing. I am glad I wore earphones the whole time.
There are also some songs with lyrics, and poems performed by some of the characters, and they hold a certain significance to them in the context of the story. Itâs just incredible stuff.
Final thoughts
Each chapter has something that will simply leave you thinking, each line of dialogue is just, so quotable, something worth savouring and reflecting upon. Every shot, camera placement, lightning choice, the voice acting, everything just feels like it was tweaked and planned to perfection, to emote a feeling, to leave a mark.
The game will deal with a variety of topics, and you can tell just by the plot alone, it is about the covid pandemic, about religion, about resisting authority, about memories, seeking freedom, leaving the past behind, promises, authoritarian regimes, about existence itself.
It explores pretty much every facet of the human condition.
I want to write more, there is so much more, but I donât feel comfortable doing so, this game is just, so worth playing. You should just experience it yourself, I donât want to ruin the incredible moments, the plot twists, the most shocking visuals I have seen in ages, the psychological aspects of the whole ordeal. It is just, ugh, I donât know, I run out of words to describe it without spoiling it.
It is, quite simply, a masterpiece.
I will be thinking about this game throughout my life, I can just tell already. I had already thought about it a lot even before playing it, because I kind of wanted to avoid it, for some reason, but now that I played it, it will just keep showing up in my thoughts constantly.
IF YOU WANNA DISCUSS ANYTHING AT ALL ABOUT THIS GAME PLEASE CONTACT ME AT ONCE
SPOILERS AHEAD, PLEASE DO NOT READ, RANDOM THOUGHTS ABOUT MULTIPLE PLOT POINTS INCOMING
Don't say I didn't warn you.
There will be spoilers from now on, because I need to talk about stuff. These are just random thoughts about random things I am thinking about, so yeah, there you go.
Watcher is such an interesting character, but, it turns out, you are actually living her memories, of her First Communion, while you are actually someone else entirely? Itâs a memory within a memory, and it is all for the sake of achieving true freedom. Also, the reveal that she had actually dont 800+ communions all for the sake of overloading the Source was insane and it makes me wonder if there are signs of that throughout the game.
Principal/Youngestâs story completely broke me though, going through all of that and being completely misunderstood. I really feel for her. That shot where she is just looking at the stars on the fake night sky of the Orchard, while sheâs saying âI try to do everything right, to be lovedâŚâ is absolutely gut-wrenching.
The Occupants are not that bad, but the language and the way they communicate is simply deadly for humans, at least until they find Iris and figure something out. The design is clearly inspired by Evangelion, which is of course inspired by some religious imagery. I wonder where the headless idea came from. Itâs funny, because in some places in Mexico there are catholic buildings with headless statues on them, this is the case because of the Guerras Cristeras an event where Catholic leaders movilized the people because the government wanted control over birth certificates, lands that belonged to the Church, and similar things, itâs a really interesting piece of Mexican history, and the statues were destroyed as a form of protest.
I canât help but wonder if linguists really tried everything they could to interact with these beings, obviously hazmat suits worked to keep the virus away, but I wonder if they could have done something different.
Was the piano out of tune or how did they say Bach was dissonant, I donât understand! Although, I really loved the scene where you can use certain phrases to communicate with one of The Occupants and understand just a bit more whatâs going on. The call back from âResonanceâ to âDissonanceâ was something I didnât miss! Super cool.
That real life video portion, just, wow. Such a choice was crazy to see, and beautifully filmed too.
Blue is awesome, even though she could have felt empty or betrayed or just as a âtoolâ she finds a purpose and a fight worth fighting for. Although I guess she was also planning, or willing, to kill herself for the sake of revenge. That would have been quite a different game. I canât help but wonder why they thought she was the culprit so quickly, did they have cameras or what?
Jiao is one of the most interesting characters here. Was everything just a reflection of Irisâ psyche? or was her involvement in so many things real? The wiki says there are âJiao Entitiesâ that you can talk to, so I guess it was a sort of construct from Irisâ memories.
Obviously only Iris clones had the gift of immortality, but I kinda wonder why they didnât just clone the regular folks from the 50 to at least have a more diverse society? I think they might have done this at first, or did they have relationships? Since I believe some of the people hadnât seen the outside before, I donât know.
There is also a Jiao Prime, do the Jiaoâs have immortality too? or is it something left unexplained? No idea!
The sequence where Iris and Jiao run away from an Occupant is one of the craziest moments in the game, the way it develops is amazing, and how we see it from multiple angles multiple times was just insane. Is this also the moment where the Occupant gains an interest in Iris? I still donât understand why she was chosen? Was Jiao somehow involved, almost as if âshe follows this girl, letâs do so tooâ kinda deal?
The Sisters in general were so cool, I really loved Knower and Healer and Fixer and BBF, they all had great developments and unique traits, I donât know if I can pick one above others, but of course Watcher is my favorite. I really, really liked talking to Bartender too, and to the Library girl who just absolutely devoured every archive and talked about the meaning behind poems and stuff. The death of them was also so, so sad, they crushed me.
For my finale, I turned off the lights to the Red Guard, the religious zealots and Capital Red, and left the rest. That epilogue was just really something, I was so happy and so sad to see the end of it. It will stay with me for quite a while
Comments
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Here are my weeknotes from June 17 to 23, 2025. I am completely immersed in 1000ĂRESIST, I played some card games with friends, and I also started book 5 of The Expanse.
