Just a public service reminder: It’s been ten years since Transistor came out. I remember being so impressed by Supergiant Games’ debut title, Bastion, that I franctically googled everything I could about Transistor. Hell, I even wrote a blog post about it. In the end, I remember being very whelmed, not because the game about a singer battling an enemy known as the Process, fell short of my expectations – I mean it did, but that’s not the game’s fault. My expectations were just insane.
Because, after all, this game was going to be, as the Germans call it, the egg-laying wool milk sow, i.e. the perfect game that could do anything. In the end, it was just a game. A very good, well-written, expertly designed both graphically and gameplay-wise, game – but still a game nonetheless. My imagination was just bigger, I guess.
Which is why it kind of makes me sad that in 2024, Supergiant Games is deciding to revisit another one of their amazing game worlds by making a sequel to the critically acclaimed roguelike Hades. Hades – a game that takes place in the Greek underworld and features gods, demigods and everything in between – was by all means an incredible game, one I put way more hours into than I put into Transistor, but the characters and the world never spoke to me the way Transistor did. Transistor was its own setting: A art deco cyberpunky world on the brink of destruction – Hades puts an interesting twist on Greek mythology, but as soon as I shut the game down, the world ceases to exist for me. Transistor is transcendal.
Anyway, why am I rambling? Because you should play Transistor. You can get it on PC. You can get it on your tablet. You can get it on your console. You can get it on your mac. You can get it on your phone. Any maybe there’s an art-deco smart fridge out there that runs this thing. It’s a short but sweet experience, about ten hours or so – and it’s a touching little experience. I just wish 2014 me realized that.
