1000xResist

''1000xResist'' (stylized as ''1000xRESIST'') is an adventure video game created by developer Sunset Visitor and published in 2024 by Fellow Traveller Games for Windows and Nintendo Switch. The player is a clone named Watcher in the post-apocalyptic far future where aliens have eradicated most of humanity through a global pandemic, leaving only a small society of clones behind.

Upon release, the game received generally positive reviews from critics, with praise directed to its narrative and treatment of themes relating to the experience of members of diaspora communities, the legacies of conflict, intergenerational trauma and the coronavirus pandemic. Several critics described ''1000xRESIST'' as one of the best games of 2024. Prior to release, the game received nominations for several awards at the 2024 Independent Games Festival, including a Peabody Award and shortlist for the Seumas McNally Grand Prize.

Gameplay

''1000xRESIST'' is a narrative-based adventure game involving environmental exploration and conversational choices with characters throughout the game's settings. The game features many optional conversations and interactions, particularly in the game's overarching area, the Orchard, which is navigated a map of the area and a minimap to show waypoints of interest. In other parts of the game, players engage in Communion to explore memories, allowing them to jump forward or backwards in a given memory to explore previously inaccessible areas, or to see characters experience different time periods. Unlocking additional time periods can assist the player in completing puzzles or accessing new conversations to progress the story. In some segments during Communion, the player focuses on a specific memory by entering an abstract space, slowing time and interacting with floating spheres to fly between them to locate and listen to the characters who had the conversation.

Plot

The backstory is presented nonlinearly throughout the game via memories and dialogue. Iris Kwan is a Canadian teenager whose parents fled the 2019–2020 Hong Kong protests and struggle to cope with the lingering trauma as an immigrant family. Sullen and indrawn, Iris lashes out at the people around her, including her parents and schoolmate Jiao, a recent Chinese immigrant who looks up to Iris. In 2047, an alien race called the Occupants arrives on Earth. They appear as giant red humanoids with halos in place of their heads, and spread a fatal virus that causes the body to expel its water through the eyes. While Iris's class, including Jiao, is wiped out by the disease, she proves to be immune and abandons her parents to be studied by a research group trying to preserve humanity. She brings a picture of Jiao through which she continues to talk to her.

Iris is taken aboard a generation ship, one of dozens designed to sink below the oceans to hide from the Occupants. Over the following years, communication is lost with the remaining other ships, while many clones are made of Iris but fail to preserve her immunity. Iris herself, who has stopped physically aging, grows increasingly resentful and eventually makes contact with an Occupant, killing everyone else on the ship and receiving a set of Occupant memory-transfer devices. She creates five new clones of herself as companions and shares her memories, in sessions called communions, with both these sisters and the Occupants. The Youngest sister, seeking to please Iris, discovers relics of Jiao and attempts to clone her. Disgusted, Iris kills the Jiao clone, condemns the Youngest, and departs.

An unspecified time later, the Youngest has assumed control of the clone society as Principal. The other clones are sorted by function, with one head sister of each type: Knower, Fixer, Healer, Bang Bang Fire, and Watcher. Principal leads worship of Iris, the Allmother, who will one day destroy the Occupants and reclaim the surface. She selects the worthiest clones to be sent to Iris by train, hoping to redeem the "ancient sin". At the start of the game, the player assumes the role of Watcher, who uses one of the Occupant devices, called Secretary, to engage in communion and explore Iris's memories. While communing with Principal, Watcher is confronted by Fixer, a close friend who had left on the train, about the Allmother's true nature. As communication from the "other side" is forbidden, Watcher reports this to Principal and is told that Fixer has been incinerated.

An Occupant incursion kills many sisters. While sheltering, Watcher communes with Knower and observes Iris's collaboration with the Occupants, also learning that Secretary is of Occupant origin. Outraged, Watcher smashes Secretary and uses a shard to assassinate Iris. Principal arrives and reveals herself as the Youngest, having set Watcher on this path. In the aftermath, mourning and violence break out as the sisters attempt to rule themselves. Principal establishes a Provisional Government with Knower as High Minister, who imprisons and tortures Watcher for several years as she refuses to cooperate with the regime. During this time factions emerge in the community, including a religious cult awaiting the second coming of the Allmother, a servant caste of newly-created Jiao clones, and a harsh police force of Red Guards.

The player now controls 48, an unclassified "Miscellaneous" Iris clone who works as a bartender. She makes contact with anti-government groups to assemble a bomb that kills most of the ministers and wounds Principal. She is rescued by outlaws Fixer, Healer, Bang Bang Fire, and Watcher, who devise a plan to summon an Occupant and trigger a mass communion to show everyone the truth. Knower redirects security forces as rebels launch a diversionary attack. Secretary merges with the Occupant, the last remaining on Earth, understanding that the Occupants could not grasp the nature of humans or death. They let the player decide which of the factions and surviving sisters will be carried forward into the new world, leading to one of several endings. In the true ending, an unnamed Jiao clone explores the various characters' graves.

Development

''1000xRESIST'' was created by Sunset Visitor, a four-person development team based in Vancouver, Canada, with backgrounds in theatre, new media, dance and performance art. Creative director Remy Siu stated the game began as a prototype in March 2020 following the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, during a period when the developers were unable to perform or tour and decided to enter video game development. The characters in the game were animated using Rokoko motion capture technology.

''1000xRESIST'' was announced with the release of a trailer in September 2022, and a demo was showcased at Steam Next Fest in February 2023. The full version of the game was published by Fellow Traveller on 9 May 2024 on PC and the Nintendo Switch. The game was distributed as part of a Summer Narrative Celebration Humble Bundle in September 2024.

Reception

According to review aggregator Metacritic, ''1000xRESIST'' received "generally favorable" reviews from critics, with the site identifying the game as one of the highest-rated of the first half of 2024. Several critics described ''1000xRESIST'' as one of the best games of 2024.

Many critics praised the game's themes, with reviewers noting its content explored the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, the experiences of members of diaspora communities, and of conflict and intergenerational trauma. Tom Faber of the ''Financial Times'' stated the game explores "existential themes and contemporary global politics with a sophistication and maturity that are still lamentably rare in gaming". Josh Torres of ''RPG Site'' lauded the game for its "illustration of the different struggles of immigration across generations", highlighting its treatment of themes around intergenerational trauma, conflict and the "intricacies of Asian diaspora". Considering the game to defy summarisation or simple metaphor, Alexis Ong of ''Eurogamer'' similarly discussed the game's treatment of the "invisible", "ugly and gruelling" effects of immigration and eventual assimilation.

The writing of ''1000xRESIST'' was similarly praised, with several critics praising the story as one of the best narratives in a game. Faber considered the game to be a "feat of storytelling" and commended the game's "uniformly superb" writing as "poetic, poignant and humorous". Ed Smith of ''PCGamesN'' highlighted the developers' "command of dialogue, characterization, staging, symbolism and visual metaphor". Finding ''1000xRESIST'' to be "purposed" in its writing, Michael Higham of ''IGN'' focused on the game's characterisation, praising characters as fully-formed, rich in personality and expressing genuine warmth in their interactions.

The visual presentation received generally positive comments. Oisin Kuhnke of ''VG247'' described the game as "visually stunning" and "the most boldly art directed game of the year". Higham did not consider the game as graphically impressive, but expressed that the game let "its creative techniques speak as loud as its words" through the use of "striking" colors and camera angles. Faber found the game's graphics to "underwhelm" but be compensated by a "strong" and "stylish" artistic direction.

As of February 2025, 70,000 copies have been sold, with an unusual surge in sales in January 2025, seven months after the initial launch. 100,000 copies have been sold by early May 2025, i.e. in the first year upon release.

Accolades

References

External links

*{{official website, https://www.sunsetvisitor.studio/

2024 video games
Adventure games
Fiction about mother–daughter relationships
Indie games
Nintendo Switch games
Post-apocalyptic video games
Single-player video games
Video games about alien invasions
Video games about viral outbreaks
Video games developed in Canada
Video games set in the future
Windows games
Works about the 2019–2020 Hong Kong protests