Have you ever wondered what it's like to be a news editor? Now is the perfect time to experience it.
The game takes place in Novistan, a city where NoviNews operates, and after you create your avatar, you become its editor.
The game is designed for multiple playthroughs (at least 5 times) in which you go through 14 days at work (again, those next two weeks are crucial!)
Each day starts with a scene at work where your boss greets you for a brief meeting. The boss can be quite direct and honest during these meetings.
After receiving instructions from the boss (such as how many news stories we can approve that day), we sit at our desk where certain news stories come in for review. Our task is to determine which news stories we will approve and which we will not.
In this game and role of an editor, you are the person who decides which headlines will be broadcasted in the largest news media in Novistan. Novistan is a country going through a difficult time of political, technological, and health chaos. Citizens are depressed and desperate, needing medical assistance on one hand, and accurate and verified news on the other due to the spread of many inaccurate information (alleged conspiracy theories).
And every decision you make about whether to publish something or not has its consequences, like the scene where, on your way home from work, you find yourself in a situation where several people jump off a building together to their deaths.
In this game, you have lobbyists who reward NoviNews with financial donations for publishing positive articles (about their products), just like in real life, but directly, unlike in real life where it is paid through fictitious services, marketing, consulting, and so on.
Also, throughout your days at work, you will experience pressures from the authorities who will even send you letters directing you on how to conduct editorial policy. It's actually funny how realistically this game portrays the current state of journalism.
And when you're not online, the boss is the first to warn you.
So, to get back to it, every day you start at work where you approve or reject certain news. After finishing work, you return through the streets to your apartment. On your way home, you can talk to certain characters like your coworker, your brother who wants to become famous through stand-up comedy, police officers, a secret passerby, a shop owner, and a few more people you can interact with over certain days. All these interactions, decisions, and especially the decisions at work, affect the outcome of the game.
Conclusion: This is definitely a game you will play multiple times to discover all possible outcomes. Even though the news and map are the same and certain scenes repeat, replaying will be interesting for testing outcomes and listening to the street by publishing different news. Personally, we found many connections to real life.
Achievements/trophies will certainly help in gameplay as a sort of guidance, and for XBOX players, the good news is that you can play this game simultaneously on console and PC. We highly recommend playing this game.
