Humanity’s solutions are more triumphant than its puzzles

HumanityIts biggest draw isn’t mechanical. Nearly all of the game’s dozens of puzzles would work identically if the player directed streams of liquid or colorful marbles or a few nondescript automatons. But Humanity‘s defining feature, the gears of its puzzles made up of thousands upon thousands of individual people, serves a higher purpose than simple gameplay novelty. The graphic splendor of Humanity doubling as his path to the deep, its sheer visual scale elevating its otherwise traditional challenges.

There is a scene in Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 film High and low in which a room of detectives is briefed on a crime in progress. Nothing happens that is too narratively significant in this sequence. But the scene is framed to fit nearly 40 people, so that any response to new information in the scene is mirrored and amplified 40 times. The composition turns an otherwise straightforward script into a compact, sweaty, cinematic tour de force. The size of people gives the scene a compelling level of visual engagement.

Humanitya collaboration between Japanese creative company tha and Enhance (Tetris effect, lumines), started as a technical experiment with a similar goal: how many people can be displayed on the screen at the same time? Before there was even a game, there was recognition of the same fact that Kurosawa knew: Humans, to scale, are inherently visually interesting.

This scale is key to Humanity. Often levels cannot be completed until hundreds of people have walked the same path to the goal. The stage-select screen has thousands of bodies wandering around as you choose what to play. Even the soundtrack, a digitized chorus, reinforces the feeling of being engulfed by the sights and sounds of humanity. But despite this overwhelming human presence, the tone of the game is cleverly detached. The player controls a dog and only talks to characterless orbs. No one in the crowd ever speaks. Despite all the visual and auditory presence of humanity, what the player must make of the infinite collective is left to interpretation.

For example: The first few puzzles in Humanity start with a white door, from which flows an endless stream of people. Both adults and children walk out the door in an orderly line and continue walking until instructed by the player. Almost immediately after coming across this procession, I made a mistake – I accidentally misdirected people. Instead of walking towards their goal, they turned and without hesitation plunged off a cliff. This kind of casual carnage will happen constantly Humanity; the game tells me that over 478,000 participants died during my playthrough. Whether this number should be taken as an indictment against the player or just a statistic is not stated.

For this reason, Humanity feels related Tetris effector even Katamarigames that are both intimately human And somewhat strangely, taking the trappings of society and abstracting them almost beyond recognition. And like both games, Humanity gets a sense of profundity from this abstraction, able to function as a kind of infinitely complex Rorschach for society. Read the game as a grand statement about enlightenment, or conflict, or technology. Humanity‘s theme, like the endless stream of people in each level, is yours to control.

Image: tha/Enhance

The puzzles themselves are as varied as their possible interpretations, but thankfully not nearly as complex. While the game always follows the same basic structure of ‘lead the people to a goal’, each stage of the game revolves around an idea. Destiny themed stages may ask you to record each instruction in advance. Stages themed to “war” hand each person in your parade a gun and tell you to destroy your opposition (seriously!). Each level has a bonus objective and, if needed, a video telling you exactly how to complete it.

While the early levels are consistently a joy to complete, Humanity later stumbles by introducing more unpredictable and time-sensitive elements. During and after ‘war’, the game occasionally leans towards RTS-like levels, with quick commands and direct control over weapons required for completion. While still visually striking, the elements of these puzzles are significantly more difficult to anticipate. Even after you know the solution, mis-timing an early maneuver can lead to multiple unsatisfactory restarts. It also never achieves the genius design of a game like Baba is you or The witness, or requires too much out-of-the-box thinking. Fortunately, however, it also doesn’t require the same genius from the player as either of these titles; I was able to reach 100% completion Humanity despite not being particularly good at puzzle games.

In the end, focusing too much on a puzzle solution misses what’s so special about it Humanity. In the days since I’ve been playing, I’ve found myself thinking most often not about a specific mechanic, but about what each level looks like once it’s completed. By removing my ability to influence the stage, the completion screen presents the purest form of the game’s beautiful aesthetic: an endless river of people jumping, swimming, and climbing. Orderly, but overwhelming. Together towards a single goal.

Humanity was released on May 16 on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 and Windows PC. The game was reviewed on PC using a pre-release download code from Enhance. Vox Media has partnerships. These do not affect editorial content, although Vox Media may earn commissions for products purchased through affiliate links. You can find additional information on Polygon’s Ethics Policy here.