Neofeud is as subtle and tactful as a pissed off hippo in a jewelry store to its both strength and detriment. The game’s allegory for robots/mutants as ethnic minorities, namely, African-Americans, as is utterly inelegant as David Cage’s robots in the back of the bus or Deus Ex’s “Aug Lives Matter”. One of the primary supporting characters is a jive talking gangbanger robot that would make those two racist Transformers from the Michael Bay movies tell him to tone it down. I don’t blame anyone from second guessing this game at first blush, it’s initially seems real ugly and abrasive. But what separates Neofeud from something as utterly po-faced and tone-deaf like Detroit: Become Human and alleviates its flaws it’s that it genuinely gets the genre and the themes it deals with.
Neofeud is probably the most actual cyberpunk game I’ve ever played. It dives harder into the ravages and inequalities of capitalism as well as how all the fancy tech in the world ain’t gonna fix capitalism’s problems or not even make the dystopia look cool than the vast majority of games that dabble in the genre. One great example of this is one of the early puzzles in the game is to DIY fix the protagonist, ex-cop turned social worker Karl Carbon’s, defective old cyborg arm that he can’t afford to upgrade. The dev is a native Hawaiian who worked as a social worker and you can tell straight away he was working from personal experience just with the opening scene at the social services building alone of an android lady pointing how the capitalist system is rigged to make sure the underclass is prevented from getting out of poverty. Even though Karl is an ex-cop, he as a character has an understanding of how fucked his society and is quick to point out injustice. One of the sections of the game has Karl do a CPS check on a robot foster home and you can have him let any infractions slide because he knows that the family is trying their best with the shit situation they’re given. He’s actually a pretty empathetic character when he easily could have been a snarky sociopath.
The puzzles are mostly pretty straightforward and logical, the solutions usually always being in the same room as the puzzle themselves. A good chunk of puzzle-solving is mainly just talking to other characters as well. There are some combat sections that are janky, but they’re few and aren’t too tricky.
The art is also something to get used to, it’s this cobbled together low-budget collage of weird but I honestly think it fits the game well. Really feels like it did what Cruelty Squad was trying to do years later, but better.
Neofeud is messy in a lot ways, in the writing, in the kind of janky gameplay, and in the art; but has a deft grasp of its themes and its understanding of American/capitalist society’s flaws and how completely unafraid it is to call them out in a leftist way. Its heart is fully in the right place and if you can stomach its idiosyncrasies you’re in for one of the most unabashedly anti-capitalist cyberpunk games around. Also the sequel is coming out soon and that looks legit rad. Definitely looking forward to it.
Neofeud is probably the most actual cyberpunk game I’ve ever played. It dives harder into the ravages and inequalities of capitalism as well as how all the fancy tech in the world ain’t gonna fix capitalism’s problems or not even make the dystopia look cool than the vast majority of games that dabble in the genre. One great example of this is one of the early puzzles in the game is to DIY fix the protagonist, ex-cop turned social worker Karl Carbon’s, defective old cyborg arm that he can’t afford to upgrade. The dev is a native Hawaiian who worked as a social worker and you can tell straight away he was working from personal experience just with the opening scene at the social services building alone of an android lady pointing how the capitalist system is rigged to make sure the underclass is prevented from getting out of poverty. Even though Karl is an ex-cop, he as a character has an understanding of how fucked his society and is quick to point out injustice. One of the sections of the game has Karl do a CPS check on a robot foster home and you can have him let any infractions slide because he knows that the family is trying their best with the shit situation they’re given. He’s actually a pretty empathetic character when he easily could have been a snarky sociopath.
The puzzles are mostly pretty straightforward and logical, the solutions usually always being in the same room as the puzzle themselves. A good chunk of puzzle-solving is mainly just talking to other characters as well. There are some combat sections that are janky, but they’re few and aren’t too tricky.
The art is also something to get used to, it’s this cobbled together low-budget collage of weird but I honestly think it fits the game well. Really feels like it did what Cruelty Squad was trying to do years later, but better.
Neofeud is messy in a lot ways, in the writing, in the kind of janky gameplay, and in the art; but has a deft grasp of its themes and its understanding of American/capitalist society’s flaws and how completely unafraid it is to call them out in a leftist way. Its heart is fully in the right place and if you can stomach its idiosyncrasies you’re in for one of the most unabashedly anti-capitalist cyberpunk games around. Also the sequel is coming out soon and that looks legit rad. Definitely looking forward to it.