There are few emotions that feel more human than anger. For a long time I often saw anger as a weakness, and I’d judge people for letting small issues overwhelm them and make them rage. In the right situation though anger is a gift. We should be angry about poverty, we should be angry about bigotry, and most of all we should be angry about the injustice that lets these things happen. Virtue and a Sledgehammer is a game all about anger in the face of a miserable situation, and if using it to destroy is actually the right thing to do.
At the heart of this emotional experience is protagonist Pratelle. At first you don’t really know much about this hammer wielding woman, but as you progress you’ll start to uncover why she’s so angry. Pratelle’s mother was unwell and close to passing away, but her sister Nina revealed a plan to save her. Instead of letting her pass peacefully leaving lovely memories behind, Nina wants to upload her consciousness into a robot. This isn’t just some outlandish idea either, she actually has the tools to do it. Pratelle firmly hates this idea, but it doesn’t really matter what she thinks.
Our story starts way after this though, when not only Pratelle’s mother is now in a robot body, but her whole hometown is. Everything that you once held dear is now a metallic shadow of itself, and you refuse to accept that. So instead of trying to cope with this huge change you pick up a sledgehammer, and start smashing up the entirety of your childhood home. It’s hard to convey the emotional weight of this narrative, but there were moments in this preview build that really shook me.
Before we get to all the painful stuff though, let’s talk about your lovely hammer. This weighty weapon is your only friend left in this world, and you’ll use it to smash your way forward through buildings or bots standing in your path. It feels so good to destroy buildings, with small swings taking chunks out of walls and charged overhead ones shattering huge areas. Buildings can all be levelled to the ground too, by taking out the walls that support them and watching them crumble to dust. It’s just so cathartic, and is a great way of unloading some stress into some concrete.
There aren’t just buildings to demolish in Virtue and a Sledgehammer though, there are also plenty of robots. These goofy looking bots are all former humans, and as such have human thoughts and feelings. Some you approach as they’re having inane cooking conversations with neighbours, others are mourning pets. Some are angry at your presence, and even throw slurs your way. Like all humans they’re often messy and ugly, and it’ll help you feel less bad about smashing them into pieces.
These less troubling moments are few and far between though, because most of the time you’ll be murdering robot people who very much want to live and probably deserve to. One particularly powerful moment involved a bot who wanted to die because he didn’t want to live like this, and believed his family should do the same. He locked his wife and three children in their house and asked me to destroy them all. As I slowly walked up the hill I saw text bubbles of the children asking why their father had done this, which were soon replaced by the mother begging for her children’s lives. I accidentally made it worse by leaving the mother until last, and felt rather monstrous afterwards. If this game had voice acting it would be almost impossible to stomach.
As far as I know, you’re not forced to kill every robot you come across. With the rage of Pratelle by my side though it felt wrong not to, and every time I paused the game I was reassured that none of these things are alive. Maybe I’m a bad person for playing this way, but I embraced and empathised with Pratelle and wanted to do right by her in a weird and destructive way.
Virtue and a Sledgehammer is quite an open experience really, with branching areas to explore full of secrets. Diamond statues can be smashed to trigger flashbacks to your childhood where you’ll learn more of the relationship of Pratelle and Nina, in all sorts of fun and harrowing ways. One flashback in this preview involved Nina trying to bully you into catfishing paedophiles on the internet, whereas in another she demands you tell her what part of her is the least attractive. None of the conversation options ever feel quite right, and it makes for some purposefully uncomfortable viewing.
I will absolutely be playing through the entirety of Virtue and a Sledgehammer when it releases, but to say I’m excited to see more would convey the wrong emotion. It’s a game I want to talk about with the people in my life I care about though, and one that I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to get out of my head.
Virtue and a Sledgehammer is coming to PC on October 27th.
