There's always been something sinister about the British countryside. It's a wilderness home to strange legends of phantom dogs or giant, wild cats. It's provided the setting or inspiration for more than a few ghost stories, for tales of gothic horror and even for some classic science fiction.
So it's not hard to see how it's also inspired Sir, You Are Being Hunted, a first-person game of stealth and survival that will have you desperately, frantically fleeing through a particularly bleak interpretation of the great British outdoors. What are you fleeing from? Hunting robots, of course, along with their hunting robot dogs and hunting robot balloons.
Your ultimate objective is to find all the missing parts of a device that you'll gradually reassemble, building yourself a machine that will whisk you to safety, but this is more than a little difficult when there are so many robotic pursuers scouring the landscape. It turns out that that there are going to be robots aplenty in Sir, You Are Being Hunted and your best bet will be to avoid rather than face these many foes.
What are you fleeing from? Hunting robots, of course, along with their hunting robot dogs and hunting robot balloons.
Everything about Sir is either silly or scary. I'll come to the scary part in a moment, but first I need to explain to you that this is a game of tweed and tea. When it's not making you dash across the moor, Sir is serving up its own gentle satire of old-fashioned, Edwardian-era England. Those robots are smartly-dressed pipe-smokers in deer-stalkers and dinner jackets. As you start scavenging your environment for supplies, you'll soon find yourself turning up flasks of tea, jars of marmalade, even joints of ham.
Should this give you the impression that Sir is a walk in the park, or a stroll across the dales, then I'm afraid you're quite mistaken. Independent developer Big Robot, which includes veteran games journalist Jim Rossignol, is determined to make this a difficult and dangerous experience. Those robots are as canny as they are merciless. You're a fragile thing and, should they spot you, they'll shoot you until you're a sieve. They're far more brutal than many opponents in other stealth games, making bee-lines toward any loud noise they hear, and if you go to ground, they'll rush to where they think you are. That's exactly why fighting them is a last resort, or why it's so vital you pick your battles when gunfights will only draw more attention.
For all its revolvers, shotguns and hatchets, subtlety is still your best weapon. A visibility meter that lets you know just how easy you are to spot. Rush across open ground and you can be seen even in the distance, while crawling through the tall grass allows you to slip within a few feet of your tinpot trackers. It's wise to keep to cover and, more often than not, to take the long way around when a robot patrol gets too near.
Everything about Sir is either silly or scary.
But the problem with those robots is they keep finding and guarding all the most important things in Sir's world. There are quaint villages populated by houses and churches hold supplies and, if you're really lucky, the odd weapon, but free-roaming patrols will leave guards by features of interest. You really, really need those supplies, too, because your own hunger is as much of an enemy as any roaming robot.
Sir procedurally generates its moody, misty levels, meaning they're different every time you play. It's my bet that you'll be playing quite a bit, not just because those robots are vicious hunters who will kill you many times over, but also because Sir is developing a real sense of dread and desperation. This may well be a game it's worth waiting in that tall grass for.
Paul is a freelance writer who covers games of all sorts, whether on consoles, computers or the living room table. He's the co-creator of the board gaming site Shut Up & Sit Down and the writer for the indie game Maia. You can find his blog at paullicino.tumblr.com or follow him on Twitter and IGN.
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