INFRA is an adventure game blended together with elements pulled from the puzzle and walking simulator genres. It’s heavily focused on exploration, and every level encourages you to take your time and immerse yourself in the environments. You play as a structural engineer who is tasked with inspecting various facilities, plants, and buildings.

Story

The setting is remarkably realistic. It’s set in the present day in a fictional European country, seemingly central or eastern European. There are certain elements of the narrative that pull away from its realistic setup, but nothing too egregious. Playing as a structural engineer, the plot revolves around infrastructure and how it is frequently neglected in the modern world. It’s not particularly flashy, yet that also makes it quite grounded for a video game story. Sure, it has some moments that I wish had been cut, but all things considered, it’s still one of the game’s strengths.

A lot of the story is told through newspaper articles and documents, so there’s a fair bit of reading involved for a puzzle game. The writing was pretty good at emulating newspaper headlines and articles, even including a handful of typos (although I’m not sure how intentional that was). The personal documents and emails could be a little too heavy on the exposition, but it’s understandable for a game that only has a handful of short cutscenes.

Gameplay

INFRA is a massive game with almost too much content. It took me at least 25-30 hours to beat the game while finding ~99% of collectibles. It can be completed much faster, but if you try to experience everything the game has to offer, it can be a little overwhelming and wear out its welcome by the end.

The gameplay can generally be split into four main objectives: photographing problems, uncovering corruption, repairing broken machines/systems, and finding geocaches. Technically, you could skip 90% of these objectives and still be able to complete the game, which lets you focus on only the parts of the game you want to.

Photographing issues you discover while inspecting a facility is the most central mechanic in INFRA. Story-wise, that’s your character’s whole job. You get a flashlight to see with and a camera to take pictures with. There’s no other gear you get access to, so there’s no new mechanics introduced or anything like that. Sometimes it’s a little finicky to get a picture to count as an issue, but aside from a few wonky hitboxes, it’s a fun objective to go after. The battery system isn’t an amazing feature, but I also didn’t dislike it. It adds a small minigame of battery management, but it’s not hugely significant, aside from preventing you from wildly taking pictures to find everything via brute force.

Corruption is the 2nd most important objective because it’s the main way that the story is explained. It typically takes the form of documents but can also be recordings or various objects associated with crime (bundles of cash, guns, etc.). If you only care about puzzles, you can skip these, but it’s obviously ill-advised because you will miss a ton of background information.

Third, we have repairs. I found these to be a lot of fun, and they are probably my favorite objective in the game. Throughout the game, you will come across things like a water filtration system. In a typical puzzle game, you would fix it by gathering a variety of items, using them on the broken areas, and then being done with it. What I love about puzzles in INFRA is that they are more physical. You don’t drag the screwdriver from your inventory onto a faulty control panel to fix it, you actually need to walk around flipping switches, replacing fuses, and turning valves. Even just the walking you have to do makes it feel more real, almost as if your character doesn’t really know how to fix this and is making it up on the fly.

Finally, there are the geocaches. These are typically hidden in nature: behind rocks, in bushes, within a cave, etc. On the more urban levels, they can sometimes be found indoors, but it’s not very common. With geocaches, there’s not any significant effect on the game for hunting them down or skipping them. They are purely for the fun of wandering around a forest trying to find which bench a geocache has been hidden under. This was my least favorite objective, simply because it had low stakes and was also the most difficult one to find. I could never find any hints of their location; it was always wandering around looking in nooks and crannies. It felt almost random if you would guess the right location. If you are going to skip any collectible, geocaches are the obvious first choice due to their lack of game impact and relatively non-interactive system of discovery.

As I alluded to earlier, the only parts of the game that I would have scrapped were the timed action scenes. These involve some puzzle that needs to be solved quickly, or your character will die. The puzzles themselves are typically fun, but the time limit changes the methodical, slow-paced gameplay into a mad dash to find a solution. It clashes with everything you’ve experienced so far, and while it’s a change of pace, it still feels very out of place compared to the other 95% of the game. Story-wise, they also don’t really fit into the fairly realistic and grounded world that has been developed. It’s a little odd to go from taking pictures of broken concrete to jumping between burst water pipes and dodging falling rocks.

I also would have liked a way to track collectibles. Without a guide, it’s impossible to know if you’ve been doing a good or bad job of finding things. I found the most enjoyable way to play for me was to use a guide to find out the total number of collectibles (5 photos, 2 documents, etc.) then play the level blind. It gives an idea of what you need to find without walking you through every little step. You don’t need to find everything, but it helps to know how close you are.

Presentation

INFRA excels when it comes to atmosphere. The level design is great, with plenty of winding corridors, air ducts, sewer pipes, etc. Every location feels believable, thanks to the logical layout of the locations. Hallways will loop back and connect you to past areas to allow backtracking; you find keys that open up new paths that you had to skip earlier; it all flows so well from one area to the next. The graphics aren’t next-gen quality, but they have a great subdued style that works well with the “boring” setting of water treatment facilities. This is accompanied by sound design that highlights the emptiness of these abandoned buildings. Sounds echo and reverberate through wide open areas, generators hum, machinery chugs along, and it all comes together perfectly.

Verdict

I thought INFRA was a largely enjoyable game despite a few small issues. The world and setting were interesting and quite different from most video games. The gameplay loop was consistently strong, although it might get stale for some players, given how much content there is and how long it can take to finish. Luckily, you don’t need to 100% the game, so if you find that it’s dragging on too much, you can focus more on the required objectives, although I personally enjoyed hunting for everything. Overall, this is a very straightforward game. Right away, you will find out if you’ll enjoy it because the quality stays roughly the same throughout, and there aren’t many new mechanics introduced, aside from new puzzle designs. I strongly recommend it to people who enjoy puzzles and walking sims or the idea of exploring abandoned buildings, but if none of that interests you, you’ll probably have a tough time with INFRA.

8/10

• Loiste Interactive
• Steam
• $30