Tron: Identity review: a sleek, cerebral noir visual novel

The question of identity — of what makes a person who they are — is as much a matter of experience as it is of the perspective of one asking it. The Grid is the digital spectral dimension where the Tron films are primarily set.

World of Tron: The IdentityThis is the latest visual novel adventure by Subsurface CircularThe following are some examples of how to get started: John Wick HexThe Grid, developed by Bithell Games and viewed through the designer Mike Bithell’s eyes, takes on a new dimension: a noir-like drama with half-truths and hearsay that is layered within mysteries. The experience I had with this game, despite its short duration, was one which left me with an impression of a great deal of satisfaction. It made me eager to play it again to discover answers to lingering questions.

Set sometime after the events of 2010’s Tron: Legacy, Tron: The IdentityThe game places the player in the role as Query, a program that is intuitive and must investigate a mysterious blast. The explosion occurred at the Repository. This is a fortified, towering nexus that houses highly classified data. It’s maintained by the Core, an organization of high-level software programs. But there’s something else wrong: Except for the handful of suspected, all of the facility has been left empty. As a result of the explosion that rocked this facility, the memory of many on-site employees was erased, making their testimonies less reliable. Despite the explosion presumably having been triggered to cover up for a robbery, nobody seems particularly inclined to say just what — if anything — has been taken, least of all the facility’s administrator.

Bithell Games

As a member of the “Disciples of Tron,” an order of programs who work independently from the system in pursuit of the capital-T Truth, you’re only supposed to observe and investigate. But before the night is over, you’ll have to make some hard choices — choices that will not only impact the course of your own future, but that of the entire Grid itself.

It is not clear how this game fits in with other visual novels. Tron: The IdentityIt’s a pretty straightforward experience. There’s no left-field fourth-wall-breaking twists à la Doki Doki Literature Club or romance subplots à la Dream DaddySimulator of a Dad DatingThe game is essentially a blank slate at the beginning of the game, a program whose entire modus operandi is defined by impartiality and noninterference. The game starts with Query as a completely blank program, one whose modus operandi revolves around impartiality and non-interference. However, in order to develop rapport with the suspects and negotiate their willingness in aiding your investigation, sooner or later you’re going to have to break your one rule: caring enough about the lives of others to either interfere on their behalf or stand between them and their goals. It is a very intuitive game, and it’s a lot of fun. However, there is one aspect that can be frustrating: the defragmentation problems.

Bithell Games

As a Disciple of Tron, you have the ability to do something that no other program can do: Reconstruct and restore the “Identity Discs” of programs whose minds were wiped in the wake of the explosion. The game of Defragmenting Identities resembles a complex card game in which the players move cards across a ring-shaped screen to eliminate them. In order to advance, the player must get rid of enough cards so that the remaining number matches the requirement number in the corner.

This minigame is more frustrating than it is novel, with increasingly elaborate rules that only become more taxing as you’re forced to redo previous moves over and over again in a bid to find the right combination of cards to fulfill the necessary sequence. To the game’s credit, Tron: The Identity gives players several opportunities to minimize these pain points, including the choice to allow the game to automate the elimination of a minimum of three cards per puzzle, and even skip these puzzles altogether by selecting the option from the game’s menu screen.

Bithell Games

As someone who didn’t particularly enjoy these puzzles and found the challenge of interacting with them more obtuse and frustrating than gratifying and intriguing, I elected to skip them altogether in order to get back to the actual detective work of the game. Although the ability to bypass these puzzles completely was a welcome and much appreciated feature, the defragmentation elements still feel like they are a bullet-pointed element. Tron: The Identity rather than a meaningful addition to the game’s overall design.

Tron: The IdentityIt is, at its core, a visual-novel adventure. And it’s a very well written and engaging one. It may not be enough to move the needle for devout Tron fans who otherwise have no interest in the genre, but it’s nevertheless a creative take on the series with a rewarding story and intriguing characters that extrapolates on the universe of Tron in adventurous new directions. Defragmentation puzzles aside, it’s a dramatically stimulating and entertaining story well worth experiencing whether you’re a Tron fan or not.

Tron: The Identity The game was released April 11, 2019 on Mac, Nintendo Switch and Windows PC. Bithell Games provided a PC pre-release code for the game’s review. Vox Media is affiliated with other companies. Vox Media can earn affiliate commissions, but this does not affect editorial content. Find out more about affiliate links. additional information about Polygon’s ethics policy here.