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The Invincible

Choose between morality and survival, even if it seems like all hope is lost
The Invincible Game Cover
81%Game Brain Score
story, graphics
optimization, stability
88% User Score Based on 4,362 reviews
Critic Score 75%Based on 40 reviews

Platforms

Epic GamesGog ComPlaystation 5Xbox Cloud GamingXboxSteam DeckWindowsPlayStationXbox Series X|SPCAmazon LunaCloudNVIDIA GeForce NOW
The Invincible Game Cover

About

The Invincible is a single player survival simulation game with mystery, thriller and science fiction themes. It was developed by Starward Industries and was released on June 13, 2022. It received mostly positive reviews from critics and positive reviews from players.

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88%
Audience ScoreBased on 4,362 reviews
story1.9k positive mentions
optimization82 negative mentions

  • Captivating and thought-provoking sci-fi story based on a classic novel, with rich philosophical themes and multiple meaningful endings.
  • Stunning retro-futuristic visuals and immersive atompunk aesthetic that beautifully recreate a 1960s vision of space exploration.
  • Excellent voice acting, atmospheric soundtrack, and sound design that enhance the mood and immersion throughout the game.
  • Slow-paced and linear walking simulator gameplay with limited interactivity; movement speed often feels sluggish and can be frustrating.
  • Technical issues including stuttering, bugs, occasional crashes, and poor optimization that detract from immersion.
  • Abrupt and underwhelming endings that lack satisfying closure, with some players discouraged from replaying due to repetitive dialogue and pacing.
  • story
    3,845 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The story of "The Invincible" is widely praised for its engaging, thought-provoking, and immersive sci-fi narrative, effectively adapted from Stanisław Lem's novel as a prequel with multiple impactful endings. Players appreciate the rich atmosphere, strong voice acting, and detailed world-building that deepen the philosophical and mysterious themes, keeping them intrigued throughout despite some pacing issues and a somewhat abrupt ending. While the gameplay is minimal and slow, focusing mainly on exploration and dialogue choices, the compelling story and retro-futuristic aesthetic make it a must-play for fans of narrative-driven, story-first experiences.

    • “Great story, presentation, soundtrack, visuals and attention to detail that gives you a unique immersive feeling, like actually experiencing the story.”
    • “The story is beautifully woven together with vibrant graphics, spectacular landscapes, retrofuturistic design, atmospheric music, great voice acting, and graphic illustrations.”
    • “The storytelling is absolutely convincing—it’s cinematic, emotional, and brilliantly written. They’re not just cosmetic—your decisions genuinely shape the story in a way that makes the game feel almost tailor-made for you.”
    • “The story just cut. The end of the story is simply not ended at all. The endings are all anticlimactic and most are open-ended so don't really give definite answers to wrap the lazy story up.”
    • “I actually felt let down with how the story got from the middle game to the end. For a person not too familiar with the sci-fi genre, this could be a nice experience if you get it under 10€. The game drags a bit at the latter half, with minor issues on environment building and story pacing.”
    • “The story is a bit hard to follow; I think the dialogue sort of changes based on what responses you pick, but as a result, the characters sometimes refer to things they actually never discussed. The main character was super cringey and there were a bunch of narrative flashbacks which I personally hate as a storytelling device.”
  • graphics
    1,297 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The game is widely praised for its stunning retro-futuristic, atompunk art style and breathtaking visuals that vividly bring the alien world and 1960s sci-fi aesthetic to life. While the graphics excel in artistic design and atmosphere, some users report occasional glitches, texture pop-ins, and performance issues such as stuttering and FPS drops. Overall, the visuals are a major highlight, deeply immersing players despite minor technical flaws.

    • “The visuals are simply astonishing, breathtaking graphics that perfectly capture the retro-futuristic atompunk aesthetic and eerie alien landscapes.”
    • “The art direction and graphics are outstanding, combining a distinctive mid-20th century sci-fi style with stunning planetary vistas, immersing players in a unique and believable world.”
    • “This game features gorgeous, masterfully crafted visuals with superb attention to detail, evoking the golden age of sci-fi through its landscapes, technology design, and overall atmosphere.”
    • “The fact that I only got a smooth experience at high graphics during my first session, and any session after that had me constantly messing with graphics settings, was very frustrating.”
    • “Lowering graphic quality did not help, nor did any of the other video setting adjustments I made.”
    • “The graphics could be more optimized in open spaces, as the FPS dropped below 30 FPS, which should never happen with a decent graphics card.”
  • gameplay
    830 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The gameplay is largely minimalist, primarily consisting of walking, exploration, and simple interactions, often described as a “walking simulator” akin to games like Firewatch. While some appreciate its deliberate, slow pace that favors narrative immersion and atmosphere, others find the mechanics clunky, linear, and lacking in depth or challenge. Overall, the game prioritizes story and mood over traditional gameplay elements, making it a rewarding experience mainly for players who value narrative-driven sci-fi over action or complex mechanics.

    • “One thing I strongly disagree with is the claim that this is just a 'walking simulator.' The Invincible has clear gameplay mechanics—puzzles, meaningful interactions with the environment, and even a rover that significantly changes how you explore the world after about 30% of the game. But beyond that, this game delivers an unforgettable journey that I wish more developers would explore—a perfect blend of immersive storytelling and interactive gameplay.”
    • “Gameplay in The Invincible is a blend of exploration and immersive storytelling. As a walking simulator, it prioritizes atmosphere and narrative over traditional mechanics, allowing players to delve deep into the mysterious world presented.”
    • “The gameplay is simple and easy to pick up, but the decisions you make have real consequences, adding depth to the experience.”
    • “The gameplay is just rubbish. You cannot go more than a few seconds without having to stop, press a few buttons to stand up, walk or climb in a terribly slow fashion. The pace of the game is just awful, it's a chore and not enjoyable!”
    • “Gameplay-wise this game is really bad, kinda like a much worse version of Firewatch: it's very glitchy, buggy, animations are bad and the framerate is all over the place; it's a good example of eurojank.”
    • “The gameplay is so clunky and slow that it ruined the story and aesthetics.”
  • atmosphere
    596 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The Invincible excels in creating a dense, immersive atmosphere that masterfully captures a retro-futuristic, hard sci-fi vibe reminiscent of 1960s classic science fiction. Through stunning visuals, a haunting soundtrack, and meticulous world-building, it evokes feelings of isolation, mystery, and existential dread, appealing especially to players who appreciate slow-paced, narrative-driven exploration. While gameplay is minimal and pacing deliberate, the atmosphere and storytelling consistently receive high praise for engaging and enveloping the player in a unique sci-fi journey.

    • “Rarely players have a chance to play a game that captures well a hard science fiction atmosphere.”
    • “The invincible is an atmospheric masterpiece that truly immerses you in its eerie and unsettling world.”
    • “The environments can be beautifully stunning, with expertly-composed vistas and setpieces combining with rich VFX and brooding music to create a thick sense of atmosphere that draws you in.”
    • “After a while, any sense of tense atmosphere gives way to the knowledge the player has 10 inches of plot armor while your hand is held from waypoint to waypoint.”
    • “The game is quite short, only being 6-7 hours long for me, and the majority of it is spent walking or driving the rover which only uses basic mechanics and nothing quite satisfying about it, but it allows you to take in the atmosphere of the game.”
    • “Speaking of walking, Yasna moves with the speed and motivation of a narcoleptic who took a few too many codeine painkiller pills, while having to contend with planetary atmosphere apparently consisting solely of molasses. Walking around is about 75% of what you’ll be doing in this game, and it feels painfully slow.”
  • music
    400 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The music in this game is widely praised for its atmospheric, haunting, and retro-futuristic synthesis that perfectly complements the sci-fi setting and narrative tone. The soundtrack is described as immersive, minimalistic yet impactful, enhancing emotions, tension, and the eerie, isolated environment, making it a standout aspect alongside the visuals and voice acting. While generally considered exceptional, some note it remains a subtle background presence rather than dominating, but overall it significantly elevates the game's immersive experience.

    • “The soundtrack is phenomenal, perfectly underscoring the story with haunting melodies that heighten the sense of isolation and discovery.”
    • “The atmospheric soundtrack plays a crucial role in deepening immersion, subtly guiding the player’s emotional response as they explore the desolate landscapes and uncover the planet’s secrets.”
    • “The music is perfectly selected for each scene and really elevates the atmosphere.”
    • “The soundtrack from deluxe edition is a scam. I wanted to get music from the main menu and from the game. Instead of it I got some random collection of songs with a completely different mood. And I will never forgive the soundtrack scam.”
    • “[*]The soundtracks don't actually support the atmosphere as much as they could and should. The story isn't that intense on its own already and the soundtracks are not used to at least create some sort of intensity or emotions, but are rather background noise.”
    • “Repeating ground textures that look like early 2000s games, clipping, poor performance and weak music throughout.”
  • optimization
    229 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    Optimization of the game is mixed and often criticized, with frequent reports of stuttering, frame drops, texture pop-ins, and occasional crashes even on high-end rigs, detracting from immersion. While some users experience solid or even excellent performance, many find key open areas and sections, especially mid-game, poorly optimized with persistent bugs and lag issues. Despite these problems, the game's narrative and voice acting maintain player engagement, making performance issues somewhat tolerable for fans of the story-driven walking simulator genre.

    • “The performance is exceptional for a modern Unreal Engine 4 game that looks this good.”
    • “As for the graphics and optimization, I have a low-end PC, and the game surprisingly ran very well on max settings.”
    • “Great performance, pretty graphics and atmospheric soundtrack.”
    • “Maybe less if it wasn't for the game glitching, bugging, stuttering, fps dropping a lot, parts of the map not loading properly, having to end the process of the game several times every 5 mins because it made me think the car got stuck in an invisible rock or because the item I was holding got stuck on screen and wouldn't let me perform any actions.”
    • “Having an RTX 3080, 32 GB RAM, I would not expect to have constant stuttering, with fps dropping to 10-20 every 10 seconds, even in barren areas.”
    • “On top of this, around the second and third quarters of the game, the whole game becomes a stuttering mess, sometimes locking up for entire seconds, framerate dropping from 100+ down to 30s and 40s, turning it almost unplayable.”
  • stability
    136 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The game exhibits frequent stability issues including graphical glitches, texture pop-ins, freezes—especially during loading—and occasional crashes that sometimes require reloading checkpoints, which can disrupt immersion. While many bugs are minor and do not fully break the experience, buggy buggy-driving mechanics and occasional soft-locks are commonly reported. Despite these technical shortcomings, players generally find the core story and atmosphere compelling, though the game would benefit from further optimization and bug fixes.

    • “On PC, the game runs great on medium to high settings.”
    • “Performance wise the game runs great, I played in native 4K 120fps and it stayed locked at that framerate for the entirety of the game, but my PC is quite high-end.”
    • “Very polished and essentially bug free.”
    • “Even while being carefully slow on low, I still experienced constant stutters and freezes to the point of complete unplayability.”
    • “Now talking about the elephant in the room, for me at least, even though the game is now 2+ years old and faced a lot of updates, I still manage to run into bugs, glitches, and crashes constantly.”
    • “A huge issue with the game that really needs to get addressed in my opinion is the absolutely horrible loading freezes you tend to get a bit further into the game (broken asset streaming?).”
  • replayability
    86 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The game offers moderate replayability primarily through its multiple endings and branching story choices that provide a sense of player agency. However, slow pacing, unskippable lengthy dialogues, and a linear interactive movie structure limit the incentive to replay beyond exploring different endings or achievements. Overall, while replay value exists, it is often seen as limited and may not justify multiple playthroughs for all players.

    • “The presence of multiple endings adds replay value, and your choices genuinely influence how the story unfolds.”
    • “The non-linear narrative and the multiple endings (with only one experienced in my playthrough) provide replayability and encourage deeper engagement with the game's complex themes.”
    • “Great replayability, due to different dialogues leading to different endings.”
    • “The only real downside is that, being structured like an interactive movie, once you’ve completed the game's different endings there’s little replay value beyond chasing achievements.”
    • “The game also doesn't really lend itself well to replay value (if you were interested in seeing where the many choice branches can lead you), as you need to sit through hours of unskippable dialogue again.”
    • “At one point in the game, there's around 10 minutes of dialogue you can't skip past, so there's goes replayability, 'cause I'm not putting myself through that again.”
  • emotional
    72 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The game delivers a richly emotional and thought-provoking narrative, deeply exploring humanity through philosophical and existential themes with strong voice acting and atmospheric elements that enhance immersion. While some players found it emotionally gripping and beautiful, others felt the emotional engagement was uneven or unresolved, often citing limited gameplay and pacing issues that undercut impact. Overall, it is praised as a rare, literary-like experience that resonates emotionally for those who prioritize story and atmosphere over gameplay freedom.

    • “It explores both the best and worst aspects of humanity, placing the player and its characters in strange, emotionally heavy situations that raise difficult questions about the relationship between humans and machines.”
    • “The dialogue and narrative choices add layers of depth, revealing complex characters whose motivations and fears unfold gradually, creating a strong emotional investment.”
    • “The voice cast delivers performances full of subtlety and emotional depth, which makes the story’s slow reveals hit harder.”
    • “Almost no gameplay, just a boring story.”
    • “Boring story, and multiple choices at that, so if I want to know the other aspects I need to play this thing over and over again.”
    • “The annoying UX makes the experience even less engaging.”
  • grinding
    57 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The game's grinding aspect is widely described as tedious and frustrating, particularly due to slow and stiff traversal, frequent forced interactions, unskippable dialogue, and awkward mechanics like buggy driving. While the story and visuals receive some praise, many reviews criticize the repetitive exploration, clunky navigation, and the requirement to replay sections—especially for achievements or multiple endings—as overly time-consuming and immersion-breaking. However, a few note that the overall short length and updates like chapter selection help reduce some of this tediousness.

    • “You'll need a second life for grinding.”
    • “Optional grinding.”
    • “But it is not tedious at all, and it is short enough that it doesn't overstay its welcome.”
    • “Both walking and driving are unnecessarily tedious.”
    • “The movement feels out of your control and is so slow; you have to interact almost all the time to climb a little rock, climb a ladder, and push a button step by step. There are lots of strange gadgets that could feel great to interact with, but it is so tedious.”
    • “Now, there are supposedly 11 endings; however, the save system with checkpoints and no manual saves means it’s incredibly tedious to actually find all those endings.”
  • humor
    17 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The humor in the game is generally subtle, dry, and understated, with occasional absurd or ironic moments, though it often feels underemphasized or poorly integrated. Some players find amusing glitches and quirky elements, while others note that the game leans more toward serious, cold sci-fi tones with less emphasis on comedic or lighthearted content. Overall, humor exists but is not a standout or central feature.

    • “(The ping pong one had me laughing.)”
    • “Just... the skip dialogue option can never be used during dramatic events... unless you want to ruin the tension while falling off your chair laughing at the high pitched chipmunk voices the accelerated dialogue takes on.”
    • “Instruments were becoming inaccessible from time to time, triggers fail to trigger, action points were not becoming active until I approached them three times from different angles... and twice during my walkthrough Yasna forgot to open her eyes after blinking, which was hilarious to be honest.”
  • character development
    8 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    Character development is generally well-executed and engaging, contributing to a relatable and satisfying narrative experience. While some reviews praise its pacing and integration with story progression, others criticize repetitive dialogue and missed opportunities for deeper character exploration.

    • “The appeal lies entirely within the story and character development and I think it delivers extremely well.”
    • “The game's narrative is a masterclass in pacing, keeping players on the edge of their seats with its well-crafted plot twists and character development.”
    • “This hurts the game quite a bit because the downtime between the narrative could have been filled with character development with this duo but never becomes anything more than just talking about the mission.”
    • “Instead of some sort of character development you get repeating dialogs that are just obvious fillers.”
    • “There aren't really any consequences to your dialogue choices, but they do influence reactions and contribute to character development, making them a little more relatable.”
  • monetization
    5 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The game features microtransactions and in-game purchases but stands out for not being greedily monetized. It effectively promotes the book it's based on but some users feel it has the feel of a low-quality, quick cash-grab product.

    • “Yet another example of a well-made game with no greedy devs, no microtransactions.”
    • “Microtransactions - in-game purchases.”
    • “Overall it feels like a quick cash grab with low-end indie tier product.”
    • “Microtransactions - in-game purchases.”
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8h Median play time
8h Average play time
6-10h Spent by most gamers
*Based on 50 analyzed playthroughs
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The Invincible is a survival simulation game with mystery, thriller and science fiction themes.

The Invincible is available on PlayStation 5, Steam Deck, Windows, Xbox Series X|S and others.

On average players spend around 8 hours playing The Invincible.

The Invincible was released on June 13, 2022.

The Invincible was developed by Starward Industries.

The Invincible has received mostly positive reviews from players and mostly positive reviews from critics. Most players liked this game for its story but disliked it for its optimization.

The Invincible is a single player game.

Similar games include Nobody Wants to Die, Deliver Us The Moon, State of Mind, The Medium, Tacoma and others.