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.
