Humanity Review (PS 5, PS4, & PC)

There are so many games today, it’s difficult to find one that truly stands out from the crowd. So, when I started playing Humanity, I couldn’t believe the masterpiece it was. There are so many elements at play here, from the familiar platforming you may have played before to bizarre philosophical themes one can only experience for themselves. The fluidity of the game provides for a soothing, therapeutic experience that you can’t help returning to every few hours. And for puzzle game lovers who enjoy a good challenge, Humanity definitely has a lot of head-scratching twists and turns in store for you. 

Humanity is a third-person, puzzle-action game released on May 16th, 2023, on PS5, PS4, and PC platforms. Let’s see how the story, platforming, action, gameplay, and more stack up in our Humanity Review.

In the Beginning

Humanity kicks things off with a disembodied voice that guides you through the game. The voice reveals that you’re a glowing, Shiba Inu dog. And that your job is to guide a massive crowd of people to the light. Yes, an actual light beam that takes them up to a better place, maybe. And, no, the game doesn’t have any religious undertones at all.

It reminds me of a blind person who has a dog that helps them navigate the outside world. The dog would help them run errands by helping them cross the street and barking in case they saw a hazard up ahead. It’s a similar case here that requires you to run ahead, atop an obstacle-ridden floating island, and bark commands like turn left, right, jump, push, float, and so on, to your followers. Without these commands, the hundreds of thousands of people marching behind you will keep forging ahead, even if they fall over a cliff to their deaths.

Slowly, But Surely

Humanity is a puzzle game that perfectly crafts a gradually steepening learning curve. It starts off easy, with just a few easy commands of turning to the left or right. Then, the momentum builds with a couple of new commands and different variations to them. But at no point does it ever feel overwhelming. Because ultimately, once you get to the upper levels, and have access to all the available commands, Humanity will get frustratingly difficult, which is great because you'll have mastered all you need to know to beat the game.

That’s not to say that Humanity is not challenging from start to finish. I pretty much had to stop playing the game a few too many times because none of the routes I carved out for my people seemed to work. It was only when I took a breather and decided to return with an open mind that the most unexpected solutions worked. In short, Humanity feels like a play on the gamer’s thought process. You might go in with a logical solution in mind, only for Humanity to convince you to ditch all the preconceived notions you might have.

Deeper Tensions

Perhaps philosophical in some way, both the gameplay and story mode transcend a deeper meaning. Sure, the story isn’t the most creative, in-depth narrative there is. And Humanity doesn’t claim to be story-driven at any point. Still, as the levels progress, what started off as a simple premise grows hands and legs that stretch farther to a deeper notion about mankind itself. And at the surface level, Humanity champions the importance of working together and how the most difficult levels can easily be solved with a little spice of teamwork.

More Than a Puzzle Game

As aforementioned, Humanity lets you unlock more commands as you progress. The first is “turn,” which, as a dog, you’ll run to the tile you want the people to turn at, and place the command there. As simple as it sounds, though, if you factor in sequencing and things like the number 8, you can easily create loops that give you more time to search for other solutions when you’re stuck. That way, your followers will keep going in a circle, or some other loop, without meandering into the abyss. 

Onward, you’ll unlock more commands like jump. And when you meet another group of aggressive antagonists simply called the “others,” you’ll unlock the “fight” command. This creates arcade action gameplay that allows your people to take out close and long-range weapons and defend themselves (but only if you say so). Additionally, you’ll unlock optional, huge golden beings called goldies. Goldies start to march forward, too, when they come into contact with your followers, which gives you another task to guide goldies to the light, too.

Even though they’re optional, goldies are highly important objectives to clear. Successfully guiding goldies to safety will unlock cosmetics and more useful functions as rewards. These functions can include fast-forwarding, pausing, or retrying a stage with all your previous commands in place. 

Cosmetics aren’t always integral to gameplay. But for Humanity, it’s hard to resist the sheer beauty of it all. At first, the people look the same, with multi-colored clothes. With cosmetics, you can start to dress them in hats, 70s clothing styles, nothing but their underwear, and so on. You can even turn them into teddy bears, robots, or dogs. And if all the cosmetics become overwhelming, you can randomize them so each stage displays a different kind.

Tricks and Treats

Besides hard-coded geometry and multi-gameplay elements, Humanity has a few tricks up its sleeve. It instigates specific rules for each stage that raise the stakes higher. For instance, some stages have a specific number of times you’re allowed to use a certain move. Others require you to lay out your routes first. Once satisfied, you press the start button, which kicks off the marching band without allowing you to interfere in any way. And others strictly forbid you from letting anyone die.

It’s all satisfyingly frustrating, to come so close to pulling your hair out only to discover a solution that’s ultimately a visual spectacle to watch unfold. If it ever gets too difficult, you’re free to watch walkthroughs of the solution to that specific stage in the Options menu. But remember, these only offer one solution. There are ultimately limitless ways to solve the puzzles. Plus, the walkthroughs don’t show you where to find goldies (unless it’s part of the requirements for completing the stage.)

Create Your Own

As if that wasn’t enough, Humanity adds a level editor stage where you’re free to create your own puzzle. Thanks to the simple building blocks of Humanity, it’s easy for anyone to combine them to create some visually stunning, intricate puzzles for others to solve. With the many gameplay variations of Humanity, users have been creating some quite taxing ventures that assure Humanity’s longevity for months and years to come.

You can use Humanity’s intuitive UI to choose the player-created design you’d like to check out, whether easy, hard, recently released, and more. Plus, you can experience Humanity in virtual reality on PSVR, PSVR2, or PC VR headsets. While the VR port’s gameplay isn’t any different from the console and PC ones, it’s relatively more immersive and a definite must-try if you own a headset. You can’t create your own level designs in VR, but they’re a solid alternative way to experience a masterpiece.

Verdict

What’s not to love about Humanity? There are plenty of pros to go around. Puzzles are challenging. They gradually increase in difficulty, without ever feeling overwhelmed. Despite having hundreds of thousands of people on-screen, Humanity never feels too crowded. The game uses a visually stunning minimalistic look and an ambient, electronic soundtrack that’s pleasant on the eyes and ears. Plus, Humanity doesn’t have a single bug to report. It just never breaks.

Honestly, the only caveat for some might be the manual labor you have to put in to solve puzzles. As the dog, you must physically run, jump, or swim toward the place you’d like to place your next command. But for the manual work put in, Humanity rewards your efforts with a visual spectacle and a sense of pride after solving a puzzle successfully. If you love puzzles, Humanity will definitely keep your blood pulsating throughout its roughly 15 hours of completing 80+ levels. And if you don’t, Humanity still proves well worth the time and money spent. 

Will you be grabbing your copy of Humanity? Let us know in the comment section below or over on our socials here.