The Red Strings Club Reviews

A cyberpunk exploration of humanity, manipulation and getting tanked, The Red Strings club is lovely and melancholy and well worth a look.

It’s no surprise to anyone who knows me that I absolutely love how bonkers Devolver Digital is. I love the way they swim against the tide in the gaming industry, often releasing the craziest and most entertaining indies out there. Their latest offering for the Switch, The Red Strings Club, is yet another very unusual game in their catalogue, but sadly, this is one fine example that “unusual” doesn’t always mean “fun”.

Every other lie I, as Brandeis, told left a sour taste in my mouth and while The Red Strings Club’s linear storyline means you have no choice but to take on the aforementioned corporation, you don’t have the luxury of being in the right. Even though the game takes a mere four hours to complete, you’ll still be mulling over the game days later. Play it with a friend and there’s every chance you’ll be debating the questions it raises well into the night. The Red Strings Club’s superb soundtrack is the icing on the cake, injecting a further dose of film noir, evoking not only Blade Runner but other eighties cinematic outings.

Tyler Fischer is a contributor at DualShockers. He specializes in writing breaking news, managing assignments, and organization. Born and raised in New York, Tyler studies journalism and public relations at SUNY New Paltz.

Red Strings Club is more of a visual novel than a true adventure game, but its roughly four-hour story will give you some topics for your brain to chew on. The conversational gameplay, not to mention the drink mixing minigame, are a lot of fun.

Drown your cyber-sorrows.

A stylish if slightly familiar slice of high concept dystopian sci-fi.

Visually captivating cyberpunk adventure, accompanied by a great soundtrack.

One way or another, film noir will persist. Although it’s been decades since the genre was in vogue, various stories keep appearing to carry on the tradition. The Red Strings Club is one such story. You’ve got a girl in trouble, death, deception and a mystery that begs to be solved. Yet, in spite of these familiar tropes, this story ends up being a powerful one.

There’s a couple different paths through the narrative and a few different people you can meet along the way, but there’s easy ways to backtrack and refresh yourself. As an old hand with adventure games, I appreciate that it’s (seemingly) not trying to trick you with the old “You forgot to pick up this thing in act 1 so screw you” bit.

The question of how far we allow their designs to shape our lives has never been more urgent. The Red Strings Club does a good job of framing this problem, and allowing us to explore its dimensions.

The Red Strings Club comes full circle. It ends almost exactly where it begins. Brandeis is still falling. He’s still going to collide with the ground. His fate’s sealed. But that doesn’t really matter. In The Red Strings Club, it’s how you arrive at a moment that stands out.

Is absolute obedience the fine print of eternal happiness?