Indika is a Refreshingly Weird Game in a Time That Desperately Needs Weirder, Riskier Games

Indika – Game Review

Listen to enough discussion around video games and eventually you’ll hear some version of, “I wish I could play a game like Red Dead Redemption 2 that was the length of a movie.” Sometimes these conversations imagine some version of a highly polished, Rockstar or Naughty Dog-style game, but with all the violence stripped out—your favorite visual novel or farming game or cross country truck-driving simulator, but it features cinematic cutscenes, stunning graphics, and showy set piece moments.

Despite those pleas, games have only gotten longer, padding out their length with more combat and more loot to invest into their various systems. The audience that talks with their wallet, that might dismiss something risky and wait for a sale, that needs a $70 purchase to be justified by high hour-count, has seemingly won the attention of publishers in a big way.

The hunt for the next game-of-the-moment—an endlessly replayable live service game where online players get together to shoot and stab their way to bigger damage numbers and more colorful loot—is seemingly carving a crater in the industry. Games like Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League kept the talent at Rocksteady toiling away for years, only to release an unappealing game to zero fanfare. All the while, stories of publishers doubling down on these kinds of games and laying off everyone fill the newsfeed.

And so Indika feels like a bit of an anomaly in our current game landscape—and a welcome one at that. Can a beautifully crafted, 4-ish hour game inspired by arthouse cinema save the video game industry? Surely not, but it is maybe a percent of a percent of a step in the right direction.

What’s so striking about Indika is how it consistently surprises over a short span of time. Within seconds I found myself thinking, “Hmm, I wasn’t expecting this. Oh, wow, this looks incredible. Uh, wait, what am I looking at?” Almost every scene feels like a special moment that, if it happened in another game, would be stitched between hours of battles or platforming or whatever else the game is really about.

You play as the eponymous Indika, a daydreaming nun in a 19th century Russian convent. She can’t seem to catch a break, as she earns the ire of her cranky old sisters who happily send her on menial chores, only to toss away whatever she was sent for. It’s clear that Indika is regularly teased and tortured by these people, all with the excuse that she’s somehow less holy or tainted in some way. It doesn’t help, then, that she happens to have a devilish voice in her head that serves as the story’s narrator, while also debating Indika and teasing her at every turn.

If it sounds like Indika is down on her luck, that’s pretty much true. Even when she gets the chance to leave the convent, she is beset by trouble at every turn. She comes upon a crashed train that was full of convicts, and before long she ends up begrudgingly stuck with Ilya, one of the escapees. Their relationship starts as a captor/hostage arrangement, but they eventually grow into companions as they find common ground in a quest to regain god’s mercy.

What this looks like is mostly over-the-shoulder, linear traversal from one set piece sequence to the next. Think The Last of Us, but with all the combat stripped away. Indika’s journey is filled with obstacles that turn into short but deceptive puzzles, brief platforming segments, and chase sequences.

None of the actual interaction is particularly noteworthy, but I found it to be smoothly paced, well-designed, and just one part of a larger package. Indika is a pretty great looking game. Indika herself wears a nun’s habit that is a spectacular showcase of how far we’ve come with fabric effects in games. There are many sequences where the lighting and shadows are jaw-dropping. This game is a visual feast, whether it’s the layer of frost on some snow or the lovingly-crafted pixel art of some of the game’s most adventurous diversions.

Those visuals are paired with some truly astounding vocal performances from the cast of characters. Much of the game’s traversal is paired with philosophical conversations, debates about the character’s beliefs, or stories of their past. The delivery here is really impressive, and it is aided by some really thoughtful animation work. The efforts of visual design, animation, camerawork, and vocal performances all come together to create some well-realized and endearing characters. 

The end result of this expensive-looking, artful, interactive surrealist period piece, is that I had a sad, kind of “aw man” reaction to the credits rolling. I was excited to be spending time with such an interesting cast of characters, in such a unique setting, experiencing a story so willing to be provocative and weird and risky. So when I devoured the entire game in a single sitting, I was left wanting more. I had to step back and realize how special that is in a medium that is currently all-too happy to provide more and more and more until you can’t stomach it.

I stop and think of the person who logged 1500 hours into a game only to write an essay about all of its problems next to a big, red thumbs down on a Steam review. And then I think of Indika, a 3-4 hour long game I’ll probably revisit over and over again, like rewatching a favorite movie.