A genuinely wonderful game. A vast desert, where your objective is on one hand exploration but on the other hand find out more about yourself. As Sable discovers more of this world, you further discover what her future will be, after the credits hit. Or maybe you do that. Maybe you see it as an exercise in freedom and are then overrun by having to make a choice in the end. These things are all plausible and viable ways to approach it from the game itself.
Now, there are technical issues with the game. Sound can get weird, loading issues occur on the fastest bikes and some objects can lack all collision. Frankly, none of those impacted my enjoyment.
With this striking atmosphere and this almost dream-like calmness and peacefulness of this world, it becomes a meditation of identity and self discovery to me. Gliding through those dune seas becomes a calming exercise and the scarcity of points of interest make all of them worthwile.
A freedom and childlike wonder, experienced one final time before you have to choose the path of your adult life. But there are things within the world suggesting that a choice is not final and set in stone. An angler turned vivarium keeper, a guard who sets to explore the world again after retiring, a famous poet once again uncertain about their destiny.
Sable embraces freedom, and finding ones destiny in life, but also questioning said destiny. It wishes the best for every individual, resulting in the best of communities.
It is no surprise that the only place with injustice and corruption is the only city in town. The biggest looming threats in this world, despite what should be a dooming apocalyptic setting, is the same threat of our world - corrupt law and capitalism.
Otherwise, this is a world that feels almost utopic in the calm and peace, especially considering its history and details. There a few fictional worlds where I feel like living in them would be nice. This is one of them.

Sights & Sounds
- The game looks fantastic. You can screenshot practically any moment and it'll look great
- I'm legitimately impressed with how diverse they made a desert wasteland feel. Gliding into the blinding Sodic Wastes for the first time wowed me, as did the petrified forest of The Wash and the black sands of Hakoa. The best location is probably The Whale, though.
- Unfortunately, it doesn't look so good in motion on Steam Deck. It was a bit framey regardless of settings
- The music is fairly nice. I enjoyed the vocal tracks, but the environmental music was forgettable

Story & Vibes
- The plot is a very simple coming-of-age tale. The backstory is 3/4 Children of Time and 1/4 Horizon Zero Dawn
- It's hard to highlight individual quirks in characters when everyone wears occupational masks and there's no voice acting. Because of this, none of the side characters really resonated
- Like any open world game, there's also side quests. Some of them are pretty entertaining (most of the Eccria quests), but others felt like chores (anything involving beetles)
- The best parts of the game are the vibes you get from exploring, not the story

Playability & Replayability
- The gameplay is bog-standard open-world fare
- The high points of the gameplay are your traversal options. The main one is your hoverbike. Unfortunately, even the best parts in the game don't allow it to handle much better than the Scooty Puff Jr. from the tutorial
- The bouldering and hovering mechanics are much more fun. Each cliffside and sheer wall has you scanning the environment for clues on how to top it. These mechanics make exploration a blast
- Unfortunately, your stamina (used for running and climbing) is tied to a collectathon quest for upgrades

Overall Impressions & Performance
- I feel like this game sacrificed a bit of substance for style. I imagine that balancing these things is difficult for indie devs, but feel like better writing or a more inspired plot could have taken the game to another level
- As mentioned before, it was very choppy on the Steam Deck. It played much better on PC
- I'm used to bugs in my open world games, but there were a lot of issues. Summoning my bike would often leave it stuck on the environment, you can cheat climbing sometimes by running diagonally, and so many NPCs in every location were running into geometry
- The camera is also a struggle in any place with low ceilings

Final Verdict
- 6.5/10. Without the bugs and camera struggles, this would be one of my favorite games. However, because of those flaws, it's hard to overlook the bland story and bog-standard gameplay. It's still a fun world to explore as-is, though

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Sights & Sounds
- Tacoma looks quite nice, but won't wow you with impressive textures, mindbending lighting effects, or ridiculous particle physics. The setting, however, is really quite nice. The titular spaceship isn't as expansive or richly detailed as you might find in a game like Prey (2017) or Alien: Isolation (it's more akin to the size of the ship in Observation), but it still pleases the eyes and serves as an excellent backdrop for the narrative
- For an artsy game this short, no VO work would have been a bit of a disappointment, so I was happy find that Tacoma is fully voiced. And it's very competent VO work to boot, with one of the characters singing a touching rendition of Peggy Lee's "Is That All There Is?"
- Other than that, there's not a ton to the soundrack other than a licensed song here or there. Most of the time, you're inundated in eerie silence, poring over audio logs for story, or listening to the rhythmic clanging of your bootsoles against the steel floor of the station
- Taken together, Tacoma's audiovisual design serves as a very effective vehicle for delivering the game's story

Story & Vibes
- As you probably ascertained from reading the previous section, Tacoma takes place on a space station. The player character is a corporate investigator who has been sent to the now abandoned ship to figure out what happened to the crew. What follows is a thoughtful exploration of humanity's place in an increasingly automated world. In fact, the events that you're investigating take place on "Obsolesence Day", the holday where humanity celebrates the advent of AI control over labor
- Corporate stooges stay well away; Tacoma has some thoughts regarding the C-suite suits that pull the levers. Effectively, the narrative prophesizes that those in power will eventually lose enough of their own humanity that they'll become more heartless and soulless than the AIs they employ. Similarly, if you're one of those, shall we say, "intellectually uncurious" types that doesn't like politics in their video games, you too should avoid this title. In fact, take up knitting or something and leave video games to people who actually enjoy them. This game has a lot of thoughts on the topic of worker rights
- But the narrative wouldn't be as good as it is if it were purely a philosophical treatise. You learn a bit of backstory about each of the Tacoma's six crew members (really, seven if you count the ship's AI). While their plotlines do tie into the game's overall themes, there's plenty of poignant beats that delve into their aspirations, fears, families, and personalities. It's really impressive how well the devs managed to pack so much narrative depth into a game that clocks in under four hours
- Despite the depth of the characters and the heady subject matter, the vibes feel lonesome and a little austere. You're all alone on a corporate space station, after all. And all that alone time gives you ample opportunity to consider what the game is trying to say
- In some ways, 2024 is a particularly interesting time to be playing this game. Now that AI (particularly LLMs) have become so commonplace, you really don't have to stretch your imagination much to envision a future like this. Will the AIs be friendly? Will governments try to protect humanity and our livelihoods? Can capitalism continue to exist when every worker has been replaced by an algorithm? Can humanity? Tacoma will give you a lot to chew on mentally

Playability & Replayability
- While the game is mostly a walking simulator, there are some investigation mechanics in play. As you follow your handler's instructions that take you on a data-gathering expedition from module to module in the Tacoma, you'll stumble upon various scenes that the ship's AI has recorded (with varying levels of file corruption). As your data is downloading, you can watch a holographic recreation of the events those scenes contain
- In addition to moving the game forward, these holograms will dole out the plot bit by bit to explain what truly happened to the crew. During these segments, you'll have the ability to fast-forward, rewind, and pause the recording. Doing so will often reveal moments where a crew member will have their wristband computer open; these can be investigated for more lore and keycodes needed for accessing safes and new parts of the ship
- In addition to each crewmate's personal device on their wrist, you'll find workstations scattered about the station. Be sure to dig into these as well for more backstory and clues
- Given that I 100%ed the game, I'm probably not coming back for a replay

Overall Impressions & Performance
- As a complete package, I was pleasantly suprised by Tacoma. This is one of those games that gets bundled all the time, so I thought it was just a filler title to up the game count of those packages. Instead, it's a high quality walking simulator with an excellent story that doesn't overstay its welcome
- The engaging plot full of intrigue and twists paired with the thoughtful exploration of political and economic themes was impressive given the 3-4 hour run time. It's as long as a James Cameron movie, but has much more to say
- Tacoma ran flawlessly on the Steam Deck. Given that the visuals aren't the focus, I'd say didn't feel like I was missing out on anything by playing on a portable display

Final Verdict
8/10. With how often this game gets bundled, it's possible that Tacoma is already sitting in your backlog somewhere. If not, keep an eye out for a sale. This is an easy recommend for people who enjoy sci-fi, investigation, or intrigue and aren't put off by an intellectually engaging experience