The good thing about alternate universes is that they’re full of stuff that’s more interesting than what we have in ours. For example, Industria demo starts in East Berlin right as the Wall is falling and drops you into an alternate universe overrun by robots.
The Industria demo is split into two parts. The first is the intro, with you having to chase down a colleague that’s about to do some unsanctioned dimension hopping. The secret East German office follows the best practices of any game set in such place, like having legible corkboard notices and a joke from The Simpsons.Though I’d say the the science institute first fucked up when they made a guy with a surname “Rebel” head of the department. As far as I can understand, this unconfirmed relative of Ariel Rebel is the primary troublemaker.In any case, the demo office hallways seem very well crafted and reminiscent of the both the period and the place. The downside? You probably will never visit them past the intro.But first, you have to cross the threshold via an industry-standard Giant Pillar In An Unrealistically Spacious Shaft Machine.One of the first things to notice in the shooty part of the Industria (which, we’re told, takes place some time after the intro) is that the requisite explanation why some doors are inaccessible is delivered by having Red Alert 2’s terror drones retrain themselves as door locks.Those porous bulbs seem to be a very important part of technology in this alternate universe, appearing as components both in architecture and the humanoid robots trying to shoot you dead. If you look closely, you can notice a bunch of automatons on the platform below. I had to run away because you there’s no way win a stand-up fight against ten robots. On the other hand, the enemies and the shooting in general didn’t come off that great.So that’s what we have Industria demo: atmospheric East German offices for atmosphere and generic brick old town (ft. robots) for shootouts. It’s really hard to say what to expect eventually. But if the shooting doesn’t improve, then boy, the narrative will have to do a lot of heavy lifting.
