There are two kinds of people in this world; those who think 1984 was a warning, and those who think it was an instruction manual. Developed by Alawar and published by Alawar Premium, Beholder: Conductor takes George Orwell’s nightmare, gives you a ticket puncher, a government-issued clipboard and just enough authority to ruin everyone’s day. It turns out that in a totalitarian state, being a train conductor involves a lot less “mind the gap” and a lot more “mind if I search your suitcase, blackmail you, report you and your family and confiscate your apple?”
Set aboard the delightfully named Determination Bringer, Beholder: Conductor puts you in the role of the new conductor in car 7 of her glorious hull. Every passenger is a potential criminal, every bag might hold a forbidden item and every decision you make could either help someone survive the state, or doom them to what I ended up just calling “the hole”. Survive long enough and you might even earn yourself a snazzy promotion to the next car.
I have played each Beholder game. I am yet to finish one. Or to be precise, I have finished each one… Usually after being shuffled into a back alley or dark room, two bangs, and then unceremoniously dumped in a ditch. My other half however has got the perfect happy ending, so I have seen how they can go. I just get a bit keen. Ok, fun fact, as I typed that sentence, she herself was playing Beholder Conductor and just shouted “SHE SHOT ME?!?” having gone a path I didn’t. Tip: Take the gun, not the teddy bear.
For the rest of you who may have played this series before, Beholder Conductor continues to delight in asking uncomfortable questions. Should I steal that heirloom and give it to its owner, or pass it to the oddly attractive sprite character in compartment 1? Do I take the package for the mysterious tall man? Each decision in Beholder: Conductor had me going “how is this going to bite me later?” and it left me feeling really nervous. I played my first go for a couple of hours and didn’t pick it up for a couple of days afterwards. That’s on me, not the game.
The train is a brilliant setting. I’ve spent weeks of my life on a train across Russia and I’ve spent over 24 hours on a train numerous times across China, so I get the vibe. As you go through the game, you also get access to better cars on the train, moving up to meet the elites. I felt like I was playing a game version of Snowpiercer, or a totalitarian Ticket to Ride. It all just works the same way a tenement building in the original game worked.
The core gameplay loop is solid. Inspect tickets, search bags when their owners are out, file reports, spy. The people coming and going from the train always gives you a kind of timer on how much info you can get from them, and if they are a part of any more complex stories. Karl from the first game and his family were even one of my earlier passengers. I of course did what was right: I put some illegal fish in his bag and reported him. No regrets.
Beholder: Conductor never gives you an obvious good choice. No matter what you do, there is always the potential for it to go sour. So you just have to go with your gut and hope that you can keep Winston Smith (nicely done there Beholder) alive for another day. I got invested in the plight of Winston, and not just because I was controlling him so I wanted to win, I really felt like I had to make some choices I did not want to make. There is no paragon playthrough that I can find. Just a lot of living in the grey spaces.
Visually, Beholder: Conductor sticks with the series distinctive style. The characters remain expressive whilst being equally devoid of too much detail. This honestly might help you make some of the decisions you need to. The train feels like a cozy space, but oppressive in equal measure. It’s like if the Hogwarts Express was run by the Thought Police. The stark contrast in areas is brilliant and helps with the visual story. Apples are illegal, but there is a plate of apples in nearly every first class cabin…
Despite the dark setting of Beholder: Conductor, there is a dark humour that runs throughout and my British sensibilities are on board. Even nods to previous games such as the recurring characters, or the poster I found in one person’s luggage for Arstotzka of Papers, Please fame made me go “YES!”. Beholder: Conductor seems to nail the fact that satire works best when it makes you laugh just before making you feel slightly guilty for laughing.
I only really had a couple of small criticisms. My first is that some of the investigations can become a little formulaic after a while. After a few hours of playing, I had a state-approved luggage-opening routine. I could be in and out of a cabin in no time and have recorded everything in a bag, and had I wanted, snuck in some contraband to blackmail with. My other is that whilst the game is always throwing decisions at you, some of them don’t have the same emotional weight that the previous games have had. I think because some of the characters are far more fleeting. It is a train after all.
Beholder: Conductor is never really about trains. It is about power. It is about surveillance. It is about ordinary people (you don’t have to like them) trying to survive whilst the government and big money insists that happiness is mandatory and you should be grateful. Even as they work out how to tax smiling.
If you have played the Beholder series before, then I think you will feel right at home. If you are new to it, then it’s the perfect place to climb on board. Just don’t ask where the train is going. Or what’s in the food. The Ministry says you will know when you get there.
Beholder: Conductor is available now for PC and Mobile
