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Industria" is a fairly decent atmospheric first-person-shooter developed by an indie dev studio called Bleakmill. The game is heavily inspired by the 2004 classic Half-Life 2. According to Bleakmill the game was developed by 2-6 people in their free time, is 4 hours long and costs $20.
The story is about a young female scientist called Nora who was part of some secret AI project called "Atlas" in East Berlin during the Cold War. On the night of the fall of the wall in Berlin, her partner Walter disappears. She follows him into a parallel dimension, leading her to a deserted city covered with all sorts of electro-mechanical wires, huge metal walls and big metal pods with red dots, and it's overrun by hostile mechanical robots. Shortly after arriving she meets a lone survivor called Brent, who will stay in contact with Nora over radio and will guide her through the city towards the place where she can find Walter. The journey leads her through empty streets, old apartment buildings, rooftops, train stations, canals (those familiar with Half-Life 2 will get a sense of deja-vu). Between the levels you will be thrown into some intermissions: black & white levels starting in a bizarre library. These intermissions kind of add to the confusion about what is going on in the story. Unfortunately the ending fails to clearly explain what has happened, leaving it up to the player to fill in the huge story gaps.
The gameplay can be described as a fairly solid classic shooter with a slow and methodical approach rather than a mindless run and gun shooter. I didn't quite enjoy the first weapon the pick axe which is supposed to be the equivalent of the crowbar in Half-Life. The pick axe felt slow to use and while the enemies the game offers do take damage, they don't seem to react to the impact of the hit, making it easy for you to also take damage from their attacks. In contrast the crowbar in Half-Life games feels more meaningful since there are many small enemies which can easily be killed with the crowbar. Thankfully you can find a pistol shortly after and once you find the SMG and the shotgun you will only use the pick axe to break open the wooden boxes which contain ammo and other useful items. The game is fairly linear, but the levels often branch out a little to either have you deactivate some device to open up the route to progress, or you will be encouraged to explore areas to find valuable ammo, healing items and letters which add details to the background story. You also get a battery powered flashlight which helps you traverse dark areas.
Since the enemies deal a lot of damage, and supplies are scarce the game should be played somewhat slowly, similar to a survival horror game at the beginning. You need to attack enemies from the distance, make sure that you aim well and take cover when the robots are shooting back. There is only a handful robot types that the game throws at you, but thankfully the areas you fight them in offer some variety. Sometimes you fight them in close encounters in the apartment buildings or in warehouses, sometimes you encounter the enemies on the streets in open areas where you can get them from a distance.
Visually the game looks great for such an indie game. The classic European styled old buildings feel familiar, yet the electro-mechanical wires, pods and walls make it feel very alien. The abandoned apartments are dark and moody with newspapers about past events glued to the wall and furniture and daily objects left behind. Green flora is taking back the streets on the ground showing that the city has been abandoned for a long time. The lighting of the game looks quite good most of the time, but there are a few indoor sections where it almost seems to be broken. The robots look menacing and give away some creepy sounds which helps in combat to locate them. The ranged weapons feel realistic to use with a great kickback when fired, he shotgun is definitely the highlight of this game. The only things that are visually annoying are the white spots you see when you turn the camera and the game is loading to objects to the screen, it's really distracting in dark areas.
Lengthwise you can expect around 4 hours to finish the game, maybe less if you rush through the game. There are no collectible based achievements, most of them are based on progression and for finding a new weapon. There are 3 missable achievements, I would recommend using the following guide since it lists the achievements in the order that you will unlock them through a playthrough:
https://daynglsgameguides.com/2022/06/13/industria-trophy-ac...In summary I enjoyed playing Industria, the experience is just as fun as playing an old FPS like Half-Life or BioShock. With 4 hours it doesn't overstay it's welcome, the visuals are decent and the sci-fi story is fairly interesting even though the game doesn't manage to deliver a satisfying ending. Give it a try if you find it on sale.
3.5