PSA: Play Camouflaj's Paranoia-infused Stealth Adventure "République" Right Now (Video)

There's a lot that's interesting about République right off the bat. In its opening moments, the narrative's protagonist, Hope, breaks the fourth wall with a phone call to you – as in, you the player – that's a desperate plea for your assistance in helping her escape her shades-of-1984 totalitarian masters. The game intellectually escalates from there – you're given the power to help Hope navigate through the security controlled compound by ghosting through the facility's numerous security cameras and electronic failsafes, all while learning about the shadowy paranoid state that's turned the world into an NSA doomsday scenario.

As a stealth adventure that deals with complicated socio-political plots and themes involving the dangers of technology it's next to impossible to not see some Metal Gear Solid influence in République, even beyond David Hayter, Jennifer Hale and Khary Payton (Drebin from MGS4) lending their vocal talents. This is probably to be expected, since République is the brainchild of former Metal Gear Solid 4 associate producer Ryan Payton, who started Camouflaj specifically to make a game about issues that personally interest him. (That the game was developed especially for mobile is both integral to the experience and probably a knowing irony.)

Point being, this isn't your average iOS game – République net over $550,000 last year during its Kickstarter campaign, and when you play it it's pretty easy to see why. Triple-A production aside, the apolitical, challenging intentions here are designed to make you think critically about privacy and information control, rather than just, say, force-feeding you a rote scifi story using familiar genre tropes.

Episode one of République is available on iOS right now for $5 – if you care about video games as a medium you should play it. But just in case you need more convincing, here's the trailer.

Via Youtube