One thing that has become quite clear over the years is that what can be defined as a game has continued to evolve substantially. While storytelling has always been a component of certain genres of titles including adventures and RPGs, the expected balance of gameplay and story beats has continued to diversify. Now, in this generation, with there being so many indie developers out there working with smaller teams and budgets, we’ve seen a push of titles that are primarily concerned with their story or experience to sell, with what would constitute gameplay serving as what you do in between.

Resist absolutely fits into that mold, obviously having a story that’s a mix of sci-fi concepts, perhaps a feeling of cultism, aliens, a world-killing disease, and more. If that list of story elements seems long and perhaps a bit much for going through in a game that would probably take people a little over 10 hours to complete you wouldn’t be wrong. There’s a lot here to unpack, and when you’re in the moment for a good deal of the experience, you’re likely to feel a bit lost with it all. Despite all of that, if you’re a fan of stories that retain some of their mystery but slowly unwind before you, that’s absolutely what’s being offered here.

Unfortunately, if you’re really expecting there to be a game to play, you’ll want to keep on moving. You will have to navigate through a game world, which does in itself help tell parts of the story, but it’s all ultimately in service of moving the story along in the end, not really for the purpose of enjoyment for its own sake. To a minor degree there’s certainly some puzzle solving to be done, so that can help add a little flavor beyond simply clomping around from scene to scene, but there’s very little here aside from loads of exposition and storytelling, though thankfully the vast majority of the voice work and story beats are well done, even if perhaps still a bit confusing at times.

My apologies if the review seems deliberately vague on details, but that’s very much on purpose. Since so much of the experience is tied to the surprises and revelations at what has happened and how, going in knowing too much could really compromise your enjoyment if you’re not careful. Understand that it’s extremely storytelling forward, that it’s going to be a bit of an odd futuristic ride, and that you may not walk away completely understanding everything about the story in the end. That said, it’s certainly not lacking in ambition and what feels like very clear intent on the part of the developers to walk you through it all in a very specific manner. Whether it then works for you or not will be a matter of taste.