After following its development for several years, Roman Sands Re:Build has emerged as a truly unclassifiable experience, one that defies sensible analysis and likely shouldn't be scored. The game's "Re:Build" moniker distinguishes it from its less-developed 2019 predecessor. This title presents a tonal whiplash, splitting its nearly fourteen-hour runtime into two distinct, yet thematically linked, acts.
The first act immerses players in a fiendish immersive sim drenched in a vaporwave glitchcore palette. You wash up on the beach of a cursed resort, where each day is a cycle of pleasing four miserable residents through increasingly optimized, often demeaning, tasks. This portion of the game expertly replicates the psychological toll of service work, from fetching trinkets and giving massages to cleaning up vomit. Each morning begins with emerging from the waves, transforming the player's body into a machine dedicated to meeting and anticipating the masters' needs, only to return to the ocean in the evening for performance evaluation. The sun hangs oppressively in the sky, poised to deliver annihilation. It's a masterclass in commitment, pushing the player towards a precipice through brilliantly designed busywork and the exploitation inherent in service roles. The game thrives on the "poisoned high" of performing banal tasks for ungrateful characters, while a chillingly engorged sun looms. IMAGE8
Players will develop apathetic affection for characters like Bunk, the pervy writer; Sylvia, the manipulative schemer; and the elderly couple Betty and Harold, who serve as a justification for euthanasia. Amidst this, players encounter Kara, a mysterious coworker who reveals the island is the decaying dream of an angel and offers a path to freedom. Players must rank up and complete puzzles to escape before the sun consumes them. These puzzles, inspired by titles like Myst, require common sense or trial-and-error, and can be tricky depending on player distraction. While the UI could be clearer, and controller input for certain puzzles like the orrery was nightmarish, switching to keyboard and mouse resolves these issues.
The second act shifts dramatically to a slow, plodding journey that evokes the survival purgatory of Neon Genesis Evangelion. The player awakens in a sealed, failing zoological research station with a parasite interfering with critical systems. Kara reappears, offering cryptic advice over a communication network, but the player must manage oxygen flow and confront the parasite before succumbing to the same fate as their recently deceased cow. The atmosphere here is one of thick, oppressive isolation, punctuated only by the sound of footsteps and the creaking protests of the station. IMAGE3
Fans of Evangelion will find clear homages in the station's interfaces, reminiscent of the iconic bicolor graphical displays of NERV's Magi supercomputers. IMAGE2 IMAGE4 This act is appropriately punishing, offering a bleak, undeniably stressful experience akin to the imploded submersible incident. The player must manipulate various valves, buttons, and levers with tools like a screwdriver and wrench, guided by abstract information on a PDA. The cyclical nature of the world means little is truly lost except morale, as failure results in waking back in the dorm, surrounded by trinkets from Act One. This closed loop of quiet, iterative horror is punishing, and the frantic drum-n-bass soundtrack, while diabolically good, underscores the growing sense of doom. IMAGE7
Roman Sands Re:Build demands a lot from the player and is not for everyone. Act Two, in particular, was exceptionally challenging and grim, feeling at times less pleasant than quitting smoking. However, its narrative connection to Act One is critical; both acts riff on each other to explore the complexities of keeping life going, and the sacrifices made in its maintenance. They are two sides of a dense, profound coin that can only be fully understood as a pair.
While the price of admission may be sanity and existential contemplation, Roman Sands Re:Build offers an important, underappreciated look at the uncomfortable intricacies of living, maintaining our realities, and the rituals we develop to do so. The developer provided a copy of Roman Sands Re:Build for this review.