The Last Worker offers some fun first person puzzling that just needs a little more spice.
I went into The Last Worker (opens in new tab) expecting some kind of deeply political, capital-‚I‘ Important game. Best case scenario: something really pressing or moving for the current moment, a daring artistic statement like Disco Elysium or Norco. Worst case: a preachy polemic about this „late capitalism“ thing people are always posting about then patting themselves on the back for having noticed. I instead found a forbidden, third thing: a breezy, charming caper with a broad anti-corporate theme, anchored by stealth and puzzle solving gameplay centered around a six degrees of freedom hovercraft.
The Last Worker is a fun, short, narrative puzzle game, something I’m always glad to play, but not an exemplar of the genre. You assume the role of Kurt, a 25-year veteran of the Amazon-alike Jüngle corporation who, through bureaucratic oversight, has outlasted wave after wave of automation-driven layoffs to be the literal last human worker sorting packages in a Manhattan-sized fulfillment center. As a note: this game is sold as fully playable both in and out of VR, and I only had the opportunity to review the flat panel version before launch.Little Boxes
That package sorting is one of two main gameplay loops in The Last Worker. Using a compass projected from Kurt’s hovercraft, you have to fly through the facility to your next package, check it for damage, weight discrepancies, or other errors, then deliver it to either „recycling“ or fulfillment chutes accordingly. I was very excited by this mechanic—it has the sort of „gotcha“ trolling capacity as Papers, Please’s bureacratic battles: „Oh, you thought this box was fine because it was undamaged and the correct weight? You moron! You forgot to check the size!“
This is a really fun setup, but I don’t think it ever reaches its full potential during the game’s runtime.
