You know that thing where every video game opens with a disclaimer saying “This game is a work of fiction, any characters or events similar to the real world is purely coincidental”? Well 1000x Resist isn’t that game, this is a game that is about generational trauma, authoritarianism, identity, and more specifically the COVID 19 pandemic and 2020 Hong Kong riots all told through the lens of a Nier Automata high concept sci-fi framework.

You play as Watcher, one of 5 different colour coded clone sisters who along with her sisters all serve a “function” and hers is to observe her peers. The game opens in media as res with a cutscene where Watcher stabs and kills Allmother, her god and leader who also happen to be her mother, the original.
What follows is a seemingly linear but very fragmented sci-fi story that serves to piece together who the Allmother is, who Watcher is, and what the deal is with all the clones, the world having been destroyed and all humans being killed by strange aliens called Occupants who are seemingly non aggressive and there is an ongoing war between the clone sisters and these Occupants to retake the surface (so far so very Nier),

What sets it apart is how it also delves into the very real immigrant experience of feeling like you’re a stranger in both your old and new home, of the scars that is imparted on those who escaped oppression and how sometimes those scars gets passed down to the next generation. In spite of its premise feeling particularly 90s sci-fi anime (Hello Evangelion) with the way a teenage high school girl is handed the keys to humanity’s survival, it does rise above those preconceptions. Iris (the Allmother, high school girl and central figure if the story) is a very multilayered character whose teenage angst feels more real and grounded in its circumstance than the average anime.

If stories in vein of Yoko Taro’s games that deal with the nature of conflict, and why video games are always so fixated on violence interests you then 1000x Resist is gonna feel right at home. Although there is no actual combat to be found in this game there is, however, plenty of ideological conflicts and violence communicated through its several identical yet distinctively different clone sisters that make up the game’s cast all brought to life by an excellent cast with eerie voice performances that feels like they were straight out of Mullholland Drive. It lends itself really well to the use of Dream sequences in the game’s storytelling, and the many sci-fi concepts the game introduces which I’m not gonna delve too much into.

While there isn’t much gameplay there is the occasional platforming, and third person action adventure exploration ala Nier. The real meat is the music, art and excellent written dialogue that never gets boring, the characters whom you think are in your corner will do and say things where you can never be sure where the story will go next but always curious to keep playing and find out.

1000x Resist is a game much like Disco Elysium that excells beyond most games in its writing, presentation and voice acting while not having much involving gameplay everything that is there makes for a perfect package that is worth experiencing and going through again to see how the story comes together from a new perspective. It’s a reminder that as much as this Industry wants to assure us that video games are a commodity, it’s also a medium that serves for artist to express themselves. And 1000x Resist has a lot to say if you would just hear it out.