Minds Beneath Us Is Set In A Bleak Future With A Focus On Character As Much As Conspiracy

Minds Beneath Us is a cyberpunk game that hooks players immediately. It shows the seediness laying under the surface, then immediately flips things around. You don’t play a hardened criminal or a hardened detective hunting them down. You’re just a guy dealing with mundane issues in a sector that’s considered unimportant. This could easily bog the game down in the most uninteresting parts. Instead, it’s the strongest feature. 

The narrative tells of corporate overreach, an AI that controls everything. Down to when transportation comes. It’s also a very meta look at the relationship between players and the characters they’re controlling. Over the course of the game Jason, the protagonist, becomes more and more aware of that control. Yet that never overshadows the personal lives of the characters you meet.

That does mean that Minds Beneath Us is mostly made up of dialogue. It’s broken up by combat in simple quick time events. The narrative never lets the “little guy” be forgotten in favor of becoming the hero, or villain. The dialogue choices mainly let each conversation be influenced by your choices but does add to that feeling of no importance in the “big picture”. It’s the game’s biggest strength. The lack of gameplay is an obstacle though.

Minds Beneath Us isn’t lacking in different story directions, however. The outcome of many choices will be ambiguous. The narrative has more depth than even the prologue suggests. It has complicated characters and an ending that’s bleaker for its realism. This is a gem waiting for fans of narrative adventure games to experience it.