Go and Play
Before we begin, I would like to address you, dear readers. Calling 1000xResist a full-fledged video game is a stretch — it's more like immersive theater, packaged in the guise of a so-called "walking simulator." The gameplay here is so simple that it will seem primitive even by the standards of the genre, and this is what brings the game closer to a three-dimensional visual novel.
But if you are fond of visual novels and love to unravel plots — slowly, carefully, step by step, collecting a thousand-year-long story from disparate fragments — 1000xResist will become the perfect storyteller for several evenings. But this is one of those stories that is better to know as little as possible about before the first immersion.
Therefore, I will say it simply: if you are drawn to science fiction dramas in the vein of Evangelion or Nier: Automata, where personal experiences are intertwined with philosophy, questions of faith, and reflections on the fate of humanity after the end of the world — 1000xResist is definitely worth a try.
Provided that you are not put off by the anime style, not annoyed by minimalism, and not embarrassed by meditative gameplay. And, perhaps, most importantly — you are not afraid of English text: there is a lot to read here, and the fan translation is still in progress. If all this is not an obstacle — just go and play.
Especially now that the game is available on Xbox Game Pass, regularly receives discounts on Steam, and on well-known platforms, the key will cost less than a bag of chips. And if you are still in doubt — let me tell you about this amazing story, stuck in the body of a very mediocre game.
Bad Stories Don't Start with Murder
"You deprived us of immunity. You sentenced us to this life. Why do you decide who lives and who dies?" — these words of the Watcher will be among the first you hear when you launch 1000xResist.
The game begins with a murder — the murder of the Allmother, a deified woman who heads a colony of her own clones. Once, she was an ordinary girl named Iris, but that was a thousand years ago, in another world and another life.
When I saw this scene, the first thought was simple: bad stories don't start with murder. It's too strong a gesture to start with, too easy a way to attract attention and arouse interest. But it works because death in 1000xResist is not a culmination, but only a starting point for a long, multi-layered story filled with mysteries and allegories about resistance, generational trauma, faith and doubt, guilt and memory.
This is a story about how a new form of tyranny is born from an attempt to protect humanity. About parenthood — literal and symbolic, about the fear of legacy, and about the pain of those who are forced to live in a world built on the mistakes of others. There are reflections on self-determination, on freedom, which can be scarier than slavery, and on the eternal desire of man to find an answer to the main question of life, the Universe, and everything.
Memories of the Future
The action takes place a thousand years after the end of the world. Humanity has almost died out due to a virus that appeared after the invasion of Earth by an alien race — the so-called Occupants. Only one girl survived — the very Iris whose genetic material was used to create clones to save the human species.
Now, in an underground bunker, there is a new society of sisters — hundreds of copies of one girl. This world is absolute in its functionality: everything here is subject to strict rules established by the Allmother. Even the names of some of the sisters holding key positions directly reflect their functions: Principal (manager), Healer (doctor), Fixer (technician), Boom-Bah-Fire (a kind of Minister of Defense), Knowing (historian), and Watcher.
The Watcher is our protagonist, whose initial task is reduced to invisible supervision of order. They all live, serving the Allmother as a deity, believing that one day they will be called to her and will be honored with life "on the other side."
But we already know one of the key twists in the story — the treacherous murder of the Allmother. However, this is not even a point, but only a comma. And to understand its meaning and move on, we have to go back — to the beginning of the sentence.
Gradually, through a series of rituals called "communion," the Watcher penetrates into the past of the Allmother, to see through her eyes who she really was — a teenager, the only person who survived the catastrophe, the virus, the invasion of the Occupants, and much more.
The deeper she delves into these memories, the more she learns about how the world lived before and after the fall, about the aliens, about the motives of Iris, her friends and parents — and about the price of survival.
I repeat: revealing serious details beyond the first couple of hours of this ten-to-fifteen-hour adventure would be a mistake that would cost you your own experience. Therefore, it is better to tell you how it "feels" — and how it is played.
Labyrinths of Memory
Despite the science fiction setting and talk of invasion and aliens, there are no battles, leveling, complex puzzles, or any action in 1000xResist. This is a pure third-person narrative adventure, where you spend most of your time in conversations — within a series of acts, united by a common theme, but differing in mood and time layers. Each act is a separate memory, a separate perspective, and with each new step, the meaning of the previous one is reassembled.
There is no usual arrow of time here: you move between the past, present, and future in a seemingly chaotic order. At times, it is completely unclear what is happening, but over time everything falls into place — the brain itself collects the scattered fragments of chronology into a single canvas.
Within this structure, two phases can be distinguished: exploring the base in the conditional present and "Communion" — immersion in memories. Almost every chapter begins in the present, where the player can freely move around the hub, talk to available characters, collecting bits of lore and the sisters' opinions about recent events. These conversations are often not necessary for understanding the plot, but are important for giving volume to the world, and sometimes just give a brief moment of a smile in this dark future.
However, navigating the main hub can turn into a nightmare. The location, although it is a looped structure, is designed deliberately confusing: the corridors are intertwined, some places can only be reached by one route, and the situation is aggravated by the monotonous design, devoid of bright landmarks that would help with orientation.
Moreover, even the map does not help at all, since it is a child's drawing with conventional signs. As a result, in some acts, I frankly "gave up" on talking to minor characters when I got tired of the endless wanderings through this labyrinth.
During "communion," the gameplay becomes a little more active. Usually, this is a linear exploration of locations with the ability to switch between timelines to solve simple tasks. For example, if the path is blocked in the future, you can go to the past, bypass the obstacle, and return back.
Sometimes there are platforming episodes when the heroine finds herself in surreal, hypertrophied spaces of memories, where you need to be attracted to glowing points. Time slows down, and mistakes are not punished, so it is impossible to "lose" in the usual sense here. In essence, this is all the "active" gameplay.
Lost in Translation
And since there is little action here, and dialogues are the basis of everything, it is worth noting that they are written with great skill. With rare exceptions, these are short, rhythmic phrases that sound natural and human. Although most of the characters are clones, each of them differs in mood, character, and manner of speech. Sometimes this is due to their function, and sometimes to a personal story that the player has yet to reveal.
At first, it seems as if everyone is speaking in a strange dialect, full of expressions like "hair to hair" or "square to sphere." But gradually these words acquire emotional coloring, are filled with meaning, and become familiar. This is how the developers immerse us not only in the everyday life but also in the language of this clone society, creating an immersion effect.
Unfortunately, there is still no translation into Russian, and it is unknown when it will appear. One enthusiast started working on it back in the summer of last year, but for some reason, the project has temporarily stalled. Nevertheless, the lack of localization does not become a serious obstacle: you begin to grasp the meaning of most phrases as you progress, and a significant part of the text consists of simple dialogues. Therefore, 1000xResist does not require the player to have a deep knowledge of English — except that individual terms of the science fiction setting may cause difficulties. In such cases, an on-screen translator helps.
The perception is enhanced by the fact that literally every, even the most insignificant, remark is voiced — and, as far as is known, mainly by the forces of friends and acquaintances of the developers. In some scenes, this adds naturalness and intimacy, in others — due to too sharp changes in intonation within the dialogue, individual remarks fall out of the general rhythm and slightly grate on the ear.
It is no coincidence that at the beginning I compared the project with an immersive theater, where the viewer becomes a participant in what is happening. This impression is supported by the visual style. The spaces here are conditional, the decorations are minimalistic, but the angles, color, and light are built with knowledge of the matter.
In key plot scenes, the camera often chooses the ideal point, not just to show the action, but to emphasize the inner state of the characters. It is not for nothing that one of the strongest scenes in the game is a conversation between Iris and her mother on the stairwell. I will not go into details: without context, it is still difficult to understand, I will just note this moment.
Accepting Imperfection
1000xResist is a chamber, extremely budget project. The monotony and repetition of locations, the almost complete absence of mouth animation, simple and angular models — all this betrays limited resources. But, admittedly, the voice acting, expressive facial expressions, and confident camera techniques largely compensate for these shortcomings. It is clear that the team understands how to tell stories with a minimum of means, so the characters never seem "wooden," although technically they remain so.
The soundtrack here is more atmospheric, created for background support. It unobtrusively creeps into the culminating moments, emphasizing the drama and accompanying wanderings through locations, but does not distract attention from the dialogues and does not pull it on itself, and therefore is not remembered.
Despite all the nuances, 1000xResist remains a work to which it is worth showing patience. If you decide to give the game a chance, do not drop it after the first hour — it is the most difficult. The first chapter, dedicated to Iris's school memories, may seem protracted and confusing, but from the second, the story unfolds, and its rhythm becomes more confident. From this moment on, it is really impossible to tear yourself away from the game.
In the end, for the guys from Sunset Visitor, video games are a new direction, and they had to learn a lot right in the development process. "You have to learn to live with the mistakes you have made," says one of the characters. And 1000xResist is full of life, despite its own "mistakes." It teaches us to move forward, not forgetting the past, but not getting stuck in it. Catharsis through the acceptance of imperfection — that's what 1000xResist is.
Diagnosis
1000xResist is not perfect as a game. Gameplay and individual design decisions can only be called satisfactory — sometimes even annoying, especially when it comes to navigating the monotonous and confusing hub. But in this case, the form is completely subordinate to the content: the interactive here serves one single purpose — to tell a multi-layered science fiction story about family, identity, protest, and love. A story that gives you goosebumps and stays in your memory for a long time.
Perhaps the main disadvantage for a Russian-speaking player is not the nominal gameplay, but the lack of translation. But if this does not become an obstacle for you, and you are drawn to games that make you think and feel, contemplate and comprehend — the debut creation of Sunset Visitor is definitely worth attention.