Broken Reality 2000 Screenshot
Image: Dynamic Media Triad & Digital Tribe

Once upon a time, in the Before Age of 2018, there was a game called Broken Reality. Set in a neon synthwave vision of '90s cyberspace (think Hypnospace Outlaw, but more 3D), it was a lovely little experience. A story-driven exploration adventure, with some light platforming and some moderately brain-teasing puzzles, but mostly just an experience in exploring a silly, nostalgic vision of what the Future Of Computers could look like. Today, developer Dynamic Media Triad returns with the sequel, Broken Reality 2000, taking us into the world after Y2K bugged out.

As you can see in the launch trailer below, Broken Reality 2000 is a somewhat slicker vision of the future, filled with more detailed characters and environments, albeit still intentionally low-fi with unfiltered textures and the occasional crunchy pixel. I received a preview code from the developer and gave this one a brief spin, and it's everything I wanted from a sequel. Same gentle collectathon energy (you're collecting Likes, which take the form of floating raised thumbs), non-linear exploration, slowly building up a bunch of travel and problem-solving powers and all that jazz.

There's also a bit more plot focus here, at least so far, building on the weird finale of the previous game. You're revisiting a rebooted internet after earlier shenanigans kinda broke it, although the current inhabitants don't seem too bothered. A cursory peek at the achievement list also mentions multiple endings, so I'm curious to see where that's going.

The aesthetic has also switched up to a distinctly Y2K look - while there was a bit of that before, the years have amplified the influence. Curved monitors with transparent plastic are all the rage, Frutiger Aero is the desktop style of choice, and everything is Very Animated. Of course, this is all seen through the lens of modern retro aesthetics, so expect a bit of Macintosh Plus synthwave to bleed into your memories of the Old Internet. If you're old. Like me.

Broken Reality 2000 is out now for £13.75/$15 with a 10% launch discount running until August 4th, plus a further discount if you own the original Broken Reality, which it going cheap and you should probably play first anyway.