14 DAY TRIAL // 
I follow the dotted line of the objective tracker as fast as my anti-gravity pod can go, preparing to pick up a package for immediate delivery. It’s helpfully illuminated and I whip out the gravity gun and engage it, picking the box up without having to touch it. It seems undamaged and of the right weight.
So it’s another boosted race to the delivery flow. I bump into a robot in the narrow space of a door, so I drop a little in altitude to clear the way, but I make good time. Engaging the gravity tool once again makes it easy to pick the package up and ling it into the delivery stream. It’s a wind-up guitar and my work here is done.
I’m not doing this simply to get my performance up. I need to go through the motions to stay undercover as I try to get a tracker into a robotic assistant that’s flying around erratically. The fate of the world is linked to what he knows and my ability to undermine my place of employment from within.
The Last Worker is developed by Oiffy and Wolf & Wood Interactive Ltd, with publishing duties handled by Wired Productions. The game is also offered on the Nintendo Switch, the Xbox Series X and S, and the PlayStation 5. A virtual reality version is also available. The title offers action-adventure mechanics set in a dystopian future.
Players become the last human employee of Jungle, named Kurt. He has a tragic backstory, told efficiently in a quick intro movie. And he seems proud of the work he is doing. His desire to be left alone, talking only with Skew, a robotic assistant, is tested when a revolutionary human organization wants his help to destroy the delivery juggernaut.
The name Jungle is clearly meant to evoke Amazon, as is the obsession with fulfillment and customer satisfaction. I understand the need to connect the game’s narrative to the present but it creates a narrative dissonance that’s never solved. The game does criticize human folly, increased automation, and modern capitalism more broadly. But it pushes the action so far into the future that its political stance is more like a burden than an asset.
Gameplay is centered on Kurt’s special gravity gun and anti-gravity pod, used from a first-person perspective. These are tools that allow this elderly human to compete with the robots. Early levels are built around moving boxes from storage to delivery streams. The gun picks them up and manipulates them, the pod can move quickly through the air, then the gravity tool is again employed to direct the package. Labeling comes into play when dealing with boxes that are damaged or unsuited to the order.
It’s kind of fun to try and perfectly inhabit this absurd role and do the greatest job possible as a future warehouse worker. The Last Worker grades players on their performance at the end of each day. But players only need to do the bare minimum to stay employed and should focus on pushing the story forward. After all, it’s pretty clear from the start that Jungle is up to no good.
As already mentioned, the gravity tool can also be used to label and fire trackers. Finally, it will gain a hacking extension, allowing gamers to engage with simple puzzles that are often required for progress. Most of the time, they will use it to deal with obstacles and to move around items, although a limited number are available for interaction.
All the title’s mechanics are interesting but the set pieces designed to highlight them don’t impress. There are entire sections where there’s no option to move up and down in the environment, even if there’s space for that. A boss fight focused on taking objects away from an enemy doesn’t generate excitement.
No gameplay element is more annoying than the mini-game required to re-power the pod. It only involves pressing a button when a lever is on the right portion of a circle but it doesn’t add anything to the experience and it is very easy to fail. The second most unnecessary choice is to take away the player’s ability to boost anytime a conversation needs to happen alongside exploration.
The Last Worker is at its best when it mixes warehouse work with another objective to be accomplished furtively. There’s pressure to keep work performance up, while also hacking and finding shortcuts that reveal ways to push the narrative forward. But even they suffer from a relative lack of variety.
The Last Worker is an interesting-looking experience that fails to make the most of its potential. Presumably, because the game needs to work in VR some of the characters and locations look limited when it comes to details. I like the wide-open areas and the surprisingly gritty vision of the future they conjure. But the need to stay close to modern influences means that there’s limited space for visual weirdness.
The sound design is a little more engaging, mainly because the game is filled with voiced characters. Skew is exactly as annoying as he should be but our protagonist tends to be either overly emotional or too subdued in his delivery. The other companion is more grounded. The soundtrack is pretty good, with some melancholy notes.
The Good
- Gravity-focused mechanics
- Mini-game frequency
- Limited pod boost
The Bad
- Limited character work
- Forced real-world parallels
- Lack of world details
Conclusion
The experience has little space for the companions to have a relationship with the protagonist and there’s very little sense that this adventure has massive stakes. Maybe the narrative and gameplay mix works better in virtual reality. But The Last Worker has an intriguing premise and some decent mechanics and never makes either actually interesting to interact with.
A review key was provided by the publisher
