Smash the Matriarchy: Aerannis is a Flawed but Unforgettable Game
Some games are notable for their gameplay innovations, their tightly constructed stories, or their engaging combat. Others fail to stand out in any one aspect, but still make an impression through a combination of style, tone, and sometimes sheer weirdness. Aerannis, recently released by Portland-based indie developer ektomarch, falls squarely in the latter group.
The first thing I noticed about Aerannis is that it’s just dripping with synthy, cyberpunk style. From its opening frames, as the game’s title revealed itself across a backdrop of Blade Runner-esque buildings cut with retro-futuristic police reports, all set to a pulsing synthwave score, I knew I was in for something interesting. Ektomarch has a commendably clear vision for the game and its world, even though that vision doesn't completely translate to gameplay. The intro comes across like the opening crawl of an '80s techno-thriller, which is basically the tone of the rest of the game, with some large and surprising differences.
Your enjoyment of Aerannis will vary, depending on how you feel about such seemingly disparate things as conspiracy theories, Vangelis, and second-wave feminism, but at the very least it offers a gaming experience not quite like any other.
If you’ve heard anything about Aerannis, it’s probably been about its setting or its protagonist. As ektomarch describes it, Aerannis is a about about “a trans woman assassin in a post-feminist dystopia.” Post-feminist dystopia here meaning that the government has declared men and women to be officially and legally equal, while harboring dark and ultimately predictable secrets. That may sound a bit heavy for a simple 2D stealth game, but one of Aerannis’ biggest strengths is how it weaves its politics tightly into its world, so that the message doesn’t feel too overbearing even when the dialogue is at its most blunt.
For all its big ideas, Aerannis does struggle somewhat to articulate. The story is told in broad strokes with mostly two-dimensional characters, and it has all the subtlety of – well, of a post-feminist dictatorship apparently. The writing isn’t bad, but its not particularly great either. It serves its purpose, which is mainly to propel a fairly interesting story through an incredibly interesting setting. Probably the most effective writing in the game comes early on, when a government official addresses a roomful of shadowy supporters, cheerfully and almost off-handedly discussing political killings ordered by the regime while brushing off their existence with a smile and a chipper attitude. Details like this point out the gap between reality and the government's happy-go-lucky facade, an intriguing concept that's enver fully explored.
Aerannis' storytelling is at its best not when it's working through its big narrative beats but when it's filling in the small details. The tears in the world's social fabric are apparent right from the start, but the more you play the more you’ll notice them. Passersby in the streets of the game’s setting, the city of Plovdiv, mumble to themselves or address you outright, in ways that range from cryptic murmurs to pick-up lines. Floating billboards will often pull double duty as small bits of world-building and gameplay hints. Robots and other strangers lurk in the shadows, sometimes more covertly than others. Pyramids and floating eyes fill the streets and watch from the skyline, making it abundantly clear that you are being watched and judged.
Though it’s intriguing at first glance, given its solid architectural style and gorgeous pixel art, the city of Plovdiv falls short in some serious ways. For one, sections of it are walled off with very cheap tricks, such as impassable rows of fire-spewing robots that serve no possible purpose except to keep you out. The city is also tiny, and the illusion of it being a real place is spoiled over and over when practically the whole game takes place on the same few streets.
There are plenty of other frustrations as well. It can often be hard to tell which parts of the environment you can interact with and which are just for decoration. Combined with iffy controls and floaty jumping mechanics, navigation just isn’t much fun. Making matters worse, the controls aren’t configurable, locking you into a pretty sub-par control scheme, especially if you’re using a keyboard.
The lack of clarity extends to the stealth mechanics. It can be nearly impossible to tell when you’re going to attract an enemy’s attention, since lines of sight and hearing ranges are never clearly indicated. Worst of all, stealth is enforced in many sections, meaning that the mission is over if you’re spotted once. Checkpoints are plentiful, fortunately, but I often found myself repeating sections over and over because I got stuck on what looked like a piece of background or was spotted by an enemy that I didn’t even know was looking my way.
These are major complaints, and they’ll almost certainly make you enjoy the game less than you could have. But they reveal a lack of polish, not a bad game. Provided you can contend with some frustrating mechanics and aren’t put off by a world that’s about as easy to make sense of as a Philip K Dick novel, Aerannis is well worth its $10 price tag. Just spending time in its gorgeously rendered city and listening to its stellar soundtrack is almost worth the price alone. If nothing else, it may be worth it just to see what it looks like when a game puts its politics first, especially when that game has something unexpected to say about corruption and idealism. It won’t make many top 10 lists, but players won’t forget it any time soon either.
The first thing I noticed about Aerannis is that it’s just dripping with synthy, cyberpunk style. From its opening frames, as the game’s title revealed itself across a backdrop of Blade Runner-esque buildings cut with retro-futuristic police reports, all set to a pulsing synthwave score, I knew I was in for something interesting. Ektomarch has a commendably clear vision for the game and its world, even though that vision doesn't completely translate to gameplay. The intro comes across like the opening crawl of an '80s techno-thriller, which is basically the tone of the rest of the game, with some large and surprising differences.
Your enjoyment of Aerannis will vary, depending on how you feel about such seemingly disparate things as conspiracy theories, Vangelis, and second-wave feminism, but at the very least it offers a gaming experience not quite like any other.
If you’ve heard anything about Aerannis, it’s probably been about its setting or its protagonist. As ektomarch describes it, Aerannis is a about about “a trans woman assassin in a post-feminist dystopia.” Post-feminist dystopia here meaning that the government has declared men and women to be officially and legally equal, while harboring dark and ultimately predictable secrets. That may sound a bit heavy for a simple 2D stealth game, but one of Aerannis’ biggest strengths is how it weaves its politics tightly into its world, so that the message doesn’t feel too overbearing even when the dialogue is at its most blunt.
For all its big ideas, Aerannis does struggle somewhat to articulate. The story is told in broad strokes with mostly two-dimensional characters, and it has all the subtlety of – well, of a post-feminist dictatorship apparently. The writing isn’t bad, but its not particularly great either. It serves its purpose, which is mainly to propel a fairly interesting story through an incredibly interesting setting. Probably the most effective writing in the game comes early on, when a government official addresses a roomful of shadowy supporters, cheerfully and almost off-handedly discussing political killings ordered by the regime while brushing off their existence with a smile and a chipper attitude. Details like this point out the gap between reality and the government's happy-go-lucky facade, an intriguing concept that's enver fully explored.
Aerannis' storytelling is at its best not when it's working through its big narrative beats but when it's filling in the small details. The tears in the world's social fabric are apparent right from the start, but the more you play the more you’ll notice them. Passersby in the streets of the game’s setting, the city of Plovdiv, mumble to themselves or address you outright, in ways that range from cryptic murmurs to pick-up lines. Floating billboards will often pull double duty as small bits of world-building and gameplay hints. Robots and other strangers lurk in the shadows, sometimes more covertly than others. Pyramids and floating eyes fill the streets and watch from the skyline, making it abundantly clear that you are being watched and judged.
Though it’s intriguing at first glance, given its solid architectural style and gorgeous pixel art, the city of Plovdiv falls short in some serious ways. For one, sections of it are walled off with very cheap tricks, such as impassable rows of fire-spewing robots that serve no possible purpose except to keep you out. The city is also tiny, and the illusion of it being a real place is spoiled over and over when practically the whole game takes place on the same few streets.
There are plenty of other frustrations as well. It can often be hard to tell which parts of the environment you can interact with and which are just for decoration. Combined with iffy controls and floaty jumping mechanics, navigation just isn’t much fun. Making matters worse, the controls aren’t configurable, locking you into a pretty sub-par control scheme, especially if you’re using a keyboard.
The lack of clarity extends to the stealth mechanics. It can be nearly impossible to tell when you’re going to attract an enemy’s attention, since lines of sight and hearing ranges are never clearly indicated. Worst of all, stealth is enforced in many sections, meaning that the mission is over if you’re spotted once. Checkpoints are plentiful, fortunately, but I often found myself repeating sections over and over because I got stuck on what looked like a piece of background or was spotted by an enemy that I didn’t even know was looking my way.
These are major complaints, and they’ll almost certainly make you enjoy the game less than you could have. But they reveal a lack of polish, not a bad game. Provided you can contend with some frustrating mechanics and aren’t put off by a world that’s about as easy to make sense of as a Philip K Dick novel, Aerannis is well worth its $10 price tag. Just spending time in its gorgeously rendered city and listening to its stellar soundtrack is almost worth the price alone. If nothing else, it may be worth it just to see what it looks like when a game puts its politics first, especially when that game has something unexpected to say about corruption and idealism. It won’t make many top 10 lists, but players won’t forget it any time soon either.
