“Listen very carefully, and you might just survive.”
Whimsy and intensity are skillfully intertwined in Big Robot’s new survival game, Sir, You Are Being Hunted. From the moment the opening cinematic takes over the screen, a mellow, warm voice with a British accent politely informs you that something has gone horribly, horribly wrong with….something. The narrative is fascinatingly brief. Ominous music resonates quietly in the background as Walter (your kindly and helpful butler) informs you that you are trapped on an archipelago, cut off from any outside help and, surprise surprise, being hunted. He fails to mention that your hunters are laser-eyed, gun-wielding robots, but the fanciful, illustrated images in the intro fill in that particular issue before the actual game-play begins. Any further details are left to your imagination and your skills as an explorer.
This procedurally generated survival game has a fairly easy learning curve…so easy, in fact, that it took nearly forty minutes before I felt any real threat from my hunters. Steam’s handy-dandy tag system gives this game one descriptor as a “walking simulator,” and it wasn’t hard to see why (at least this early on). There are really only two actions available to players at the beginning—
moving objects around in your inventory and opening doors of the abandoned houses to find food and better equipment. As you start off weaponless, fighting definitely isn’t an option. Finding a functional weapon isn’t particularly easy, either, which is fitting for a game that is billed as a “freedom sandbox stealth experience.”
Walter’s politely understated tips and the fantastical nature of the enemies give the game a lighter feel to start, but it still lives up to its survival legacy. The music alternates between soothing and hair-raisingly intense, with drumbeats acting almost like heartbeats if you find yourself running for your life. Daytime is fairly easy to move around and see in, making it equally easy to avoid your would-be murderers, but nighttime is another story altogether. When the sun sets, you find yourself in a world of inky black shadows, which makes finding essential supplies difficult when you can’t even find the outline of the door that’s only inches from your character’s face. Also, the robots are easy enough to outpace, but the starting island is littered with hedges and fences that appear out of nowhere from the tall grass, acting as highly inconvenient barriers when you’re trying to make a quick getaway. Humor and tension (if not actual fear) quickly trade places as you explore the archipelago to find the pieces of the machine that will get you out of this death trap.
Personally, I’ve always been a fan of stealth-oriented games, so that was a personal plus as I started exploring, but it wasn’t what originally drew me to Sir, You Are Being Hunted. What fascinated me from the start was that Sir also gives you the option to play as Madam. For a game with no avatar creation, or even hand animations, I was curious how this option would actually 
impact game play. And, happily enough, it doesn’t. Or, rather, it impacts the player but not the character. If you select Madam, the text on the title screen changes to Madam, You Are Being Hunted. Thankfully, that’s all that changes. The font, the color scheme, the layout…those remained untouched. Walter’s narration adjusts as well, adding in the extra syllable for the new title, but as with the opening screen there are no other changes. Big Robot’s development team subtlely acknowledges that their player-base includes both genders and then promptly leaves well-enough alone. It’s a refreshing approach to gender equality in games, to say the least.
Sir is a fun, intriguing game to pick up, and one I’m interested in exploring further. However, it is worth noting that less-than-optimal gaming systems may experience painfully slow loading times (think Sims 3-esque and then add a few extra minutes), and occasional glitching. When exploring the islands, the only way to get information about the various objects you find is to read the hover text that appears when you mouse over them. This is perfectly fine…except when the hover text inexplicably ceases to appear. Shutting down and restarting the game fixed this particular glitch, and it didn’t seem to be a consistent issue, but it can be a nuisance when you’re just starting out and still trying to get your sea legs.
Overall, this made for a satisfying hour of exploration. The narrative is sparse and any further clues are few and far between (at least on the central island where you start), but the gameplay is intuitive and the narration helps pull your interest back in. Just be prepared for a lot of walking at the start…quite possibly followed by a sudden and startling death.
