Virtue and a Sledgehammer is the second game from the dev team duo Selkie Harbour and Deconstructeam. Their first collaboration, Many Nights a Whisper, isn’t one I’ve gotten around to just yet. Still, if Jump Over The Age (Citizen Sleeper 1/2 developer) praises the game for its narrative, you’re more or less in for a story-rich winner. Both developers, and more importantly, Virtue and a Sledgehammer, deal in the post-digital dystopia of humanity. Whilst these are games set in a Cyberpunk-like future where tech is the new human flesh, Virtue and a Sledgehammer is a very much personal story on grief – and a sledgehammer.

Part-visual novel, part-walloping sim – walking sim with the added crack of your sledgehammer – the game leans towards anger and the baggage that comes with it through its gameplay and narrative in an overall successful way. It clocks in at about 3-4 hours to complete, and outside of taking your sledgehammer to the environment and humanoid robots, you are stomping through its story, uncovering it in pieces. It makes me think of games like 1000xResist or, most recently, Penguin Colony, where its skeletal gameplay is in service to tell a greater narrative.

The game opens to questions you’re urged to answer. How far will you go to preserve what you think’s right? Will you use violence to get the desired results? We then meet Pratelle, the playable character, who’s crashed her car on the way to returning to her hometown. Taking the sledgehammer from the trunk and proceeding on foot, you see robots everywhere, and your instinct is to smash, smash, smash. It’s not immediately obvious why, but you know there’s rage within Pratelle. The gameplay conveys it excellently, though, as this glacial usage of the sledgehammer is met with cathartic devastation.

This is in due part to the physics systems at play. Most of the environments in this linear sandbox are destructible. Holding the attack button charges Pratelle’s swing, ending with an overhead stance to deal the strongest swing. You can also hold it for less to do a vertical swing, or tap it to use the hilt in a shoving motion. It’s a simple set of moves, one that never develops past the same set-up of scenarios, which did wear thin as the game was wrapping up for me. When you’re not smashing the environments, you’re finding floating fragments that give you a snapshot at the game’s backstory, which then culminates in full scenes once you’ve collected enough. It’s a neat way to encourage exploration and litter story elements engagingly.

There’s an argument to be made that the narrative challenges that initial catharsis of breaking everything, till there’s almost a reluctance to be as gleeful decimating the robots and structure. However, a couple of different scenarios to subvert player expectations would have definitely added to my overall experience. What does quell some of that issue, however, is Virtue and a Sledgehammer’s aesthetics.

They’re definitely borrowing from the Strange Scaffold playbook when it comes to the game’s style. Oversized text plastered on screen. Blinding red lights paint the dreary forest environment into an eye-catching feast. With character models embracing the PSX-era like many indies these days. The game is super stylish, which only bolsters the substance of the narrative. There’s also this glitchy, synth-driven ambient soundtrack accompanying it all from fingerspit that sounds like Akira meets Hyper Light Drifter, it’s incredible.

It’s obvious I skipped past the game’s narrative after its introduction, but I’m leaving it intentionally vague for those who read this and pick it up. The narrative is all text-on-screen character dialogue that’s often melancholic, poignant and poetic. It deals with grief, trauma, and violence in quite a raw and emotional way. But then it also has lines like “feel my 20lbs of physical media”, and eventually pokes fun at that. It toes an immaculate line of melodrama and self-seriousness that you can’t help but feel its plea of sincerity.

There were moments I held back tears or felt uncomfortable, all whilst being an examination of a potential fatal future we could all face. Deconstructeam and Selkie Harbour have created an amazing piece of fiction with its story, themes and setting. I know I’ve given the simplistic gameplay a bit of a hard time, but I stand by its narrative function and how it changes how you view the action as you uncover the story.

Overall, Virtue and a Sledgehammer is the latest and great example of video games being an art form. This is about the story it’s trying to tell, and whilst the gameplay vehicle is a little bare-bones, the style and narrative make this a must-play if you’re into your story-driven titles.

Virtue and a Sledgehammer is out now for PC via Steam

Developers: Deconstructeam, Selkie Harbour

Publisher: Devolver Digital

Disclaimer: In order to complete this review, we were provided with a promotional copy of the game. For our full review policy, please go here.

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