Invisible Inc. Review (PC)

Invisible Inc. is a special kind of game, blending elements from several different genres with a very appealing aesthetic and all the mystery and drama of a spy thriller.

Its makers, Klei Entertainment, have already established a foothold in our collective gaming spirit with Shank, Mark of the Ninja and Don't Starve, proving that they're some of the most versatile and talented indie devs on the market.

Now they're back with yet another great game that challenges us with some tactical espionage action, infused with some roguelike elements in order to keep things from getting stale too quickly.

The action takes place in the not-too-distant future, a time where corporations rule pretty much everything and... well... there's not much context aside from their villainy.

You're in charge of Invisible, an underground organization that aims to overthrow the balance of power, and the game starts when your headquarters get stormed and you barely make it out alive, with only two field operatives and no cash or supplies.

Your main asset in the fight against the evil corporate overlords is Incognita, an artificial intelligence that can shift the balance of power in your favor and offer you a fighting change. The only downside is that you're running on emergency power, and you have just 72 hours to find her a new home and put your group back on its feet.

Information relayed in an elegant manner

The setup

At a cursory glance, Invisible Inc. looks like a stylized X-COM, where futuristic technology meets a '60s spy drama aesthetic. The gameplay feels instantly familiar to any turn-based tactics fan, and comes with a slew of refinements and innovative mechanics.

Klei Entertainment nailed the spy thriller feel, presenting a mix of stealth-based mechanics and action sequences, complete with missions where you are tasked with infiltrating an enemy compound in order to rescue agents and steal technology or information.

The main gameplay loop is divided between intermissions where you purchase upgrades, level up your agents, do a bit of talking, and choose the next mission, and the missions themselves.

You are extremely powerful, almost infallible, but at the same time, also highly vulnerable. One misstep can spell your doom, or at least constitute a major setback, and you always have to keep your eyes on the clock, while trying to take as few risks as possible.

The maps are grid-based, and your agents all have a certain number of action points they can spend for movement, shooting, peeking through doors or around corners, and interacting with different environment pieces.

Once you enter a facility, the clock starts ticking, and each turn the alarm level is raised every higher, with each level seeing new guards, more difficult firewalls and other such security measures instated, making your job harder the longer you linger in a certain mission.

This introduces a need to be expedient, which prevents you from taking your sweet time, playing it safe and checking each nook and cranny before advancing, creating tension, and making the entire experience feel more immersive.

Planning my next move

Gameplay elements

Your agents all come with a different background, specializing in either hacking, combat, or infiltration, and possessing some unique abilities that make them better suited for certain roles during missions.

They have various equippable gadgets that let them hack, become invisible, stun or kill guards, revive fallen team members, or temporarily increase their number of available action points, and you can also outfit them with cybernetic enhancements that offer them various perks, from stronger hand-to-hand attacks to armor piercing shots when dealing ranged damage.

Combat isn't about dealing the most damage, because there are no health points. Everything and everyone goes down in a single shot, provided that you're the one to get it off. Some enemies are armored and require more specialized gear, but for the most part, your goal is to surprise opponents with disabling attacks.

Fortunately, it just so happens that guards and cameras have their lines of sight outlined very clearly, complete with blind spots that you can use to your advantage, and you can also see their patrol patterns, in order to get an idea of whether you'll be safe during their turn or not.

Your tasers are your best friends, as patrolling guards are equipped with heart monitors, and killing them raises the alarm level, which always spells trouble, as we’ve already established. The thing about temporarily incapacitating a guard is that you have to be quick on your feet and do whatever it is you want done before the guard can recover.

“Everything that you can pick up while on the move is a welcome bonus, but you have to keep in mind that you're a spy, not a hoarder.”

Thankfully, you can also keep a guard pinned with an agent indefinitely, but that also renders your own asset unable to perform any actions. That's why it's always a good idea to bring friends.

There are several missions you can choose from at any given point, so you can pick the one that fits your needs best, from acquiring new lethal or non-lethal equipment to outfitting your group with implants, getting money, and even expanding your roster by rescuing captured agents.

From people who can scan interactive electronic devices through walls to those who can become invisible for a turn or unlock doors without needing to procure a security card, there are a lot of options that add much more depth to the game than just extra bodies to explore the maps with.

With everything being procedurally generated, getting a big team up and running as fast as possible is crucial to your success, as during each mission, you usually have one clear goal and one clear exit point, and you have to discover them within the allotted time.

Cyberspace looked more fun in Tron

Clever mechanics

One of your biggest advantages during missions comes in the form of Incognita, the all-seeing artificial intelligence able to remotely hack networked systems such as cameras, power generators, and patrolling drones.

This is done at the cost of power, depending on her own array of skills (which, of course, you can upgrade by picking certain missions), and there's always a balance that you have to strike between hacking and spending your agents' action points on acquiring more power instead of going for the main objective.

If you stumble upon a room with several corporate safe boxes, do you crack them open and get some precious currency to upgrade one of your guys at the end of the mission, or do you preserve your energy, in order to be able to tackle the security cameras that will go up one level of encryption at the end of your turn?

The game is full of these small choices, and you never feel like you have enough time to do everything right, which is awesome. You've infiltrated a guarded facility after all, and you can't very well clean house and then, eventually, also do your main job.

Everything that you can pick up while on the move is a welcome bonus, but you have to keep in mind that you're a spy, not a hoarder.

That micromanagement comes into play when you have to decide what your field agents do. A knocked-out guard will recover the next turn and spot you unless you go into cover. You can do that, but it will most likely end up costing you another full turn in order to get out of the room.

Spotted with nowhere to hide

You can get out of the room right now, but you can't afford to do the whole dance with peeking around the corner and stuff, because you won't have enough action points to get behind cover, and your hacked security camera has already identified another guard on his way.

You can play it safe and waste another two turns before being able to make it out, or you can risk being spotted by an unseen guard, with the reward being two extra turns that you can spend looting and getting power for Incognita.

Playing Invisible Inc. always feels like a small-scope arms race where you know every bit of information needed to formulate a plan but you never know whether or not your plan will let you gain the upper hand, which is exhilarating.

And once that clock hits zero, it's time for the final mission. You're under constant duress to improve your operatives and you never have enough resources. Some missions will prove unfruitful because of the random number generator gods.

But it's always fun and challenging. There is enough room for mistakes and enough flexibility in the design to let you play the game your own way, without really feeling like you're missing out on anything or getting punished for choosing a certain approach.

Fluency in l33ts p34k is mandatory

Elegant design

One of the things that put me off when I first started playing Invisible Inc. was the knowledge that it played like a roguelike. You get a relatively short campaign, during which you undertake a number of procedurally generated assignments, and then you get to the final boss battle, rinse and repeat.

I usually dislike roguelike games due to their excessive reliance on luck, and on gradually unlocking new things that end up helping you in your next run, which I see as unnecessary padding and bad design.

My first brush with Invisible Inc. left me with the same taste of squandered potential. But lo and behold, there are a bunch of settings you can tweak in order to customize your in-game experience, from the number of turns guards stay knocked out to how fast the alarm goes up or how much money you find.

This means that, if the game turns out to be too stressful, you can tone down its difficulty and approach it in a more laid-back manner, where you have all the time in the world to explore its neat gameplay mechanics, without feeling rushed.

This also enables you to unlock all the extra pieces of content such as new agents, devices you can employ during assignments, software for Incognita, and so on, in order to give you a better chance when you finally decide to tackle the campaign the way it was designed to be played.

It's really nice of the folks at Klei to offer gamers this level of control, essentially allowing everyone to tailor the experience to how they want to enjoy it. In my case, it meant the difference between an enjoyable but flimsy game experience and some of the most fun I have had in recent times.

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Sound and visuals

The game kicks off with a great animated cutscene that gets you right into the action, setting the scene and letting you know everything you need to.

The visuals also look amazing, very stylish, the environments have a lot of detail, and nothing seems extraneous or out of place. Invisible Inc. is very pleasing to look at, but the eye candy isn't there just to feed your aesthetic sense, it's there to flesh out the world and make it more immersive.

You can zoom in and out, you get a nice animation whenever one of your agents knocks somebody out, there is always some kind of visual and auditory feedback for your actions, and the visual cues for lines of sight, doors, locked or unlocked safes, are not merely functional but also beautiful.

When you activate Incognita, you get a sort of cyberspace overview of the level, with all the points of interest highlighted, and it's not only useful, it also looks nice. You can clearly tell that a lot of work went into making sure that everything fits well and that all the different parts fit well together.

The voice acting, the sounds, the visual effects, and the low key music all come together masterfully, immersing you in your very own high-stakes spy drama. The only thing that could have improved my experience with the game would have been a visit from the cast of Archer.

The Good

The Bad

Conclusion