Honestly, the first time you step out into the streets of Wellington Wells in We Happy Few, it feels like a fever dream directed by a hallucinogenic version of Wes Anderson. You’ve got these pristine cobblestone streets. There are bright, poppy colors everywhere. Everyone is wearing these creepy, porcelain-white masks that are permanently stuck in a grin. It’s peak 1960s British mod aesthetic, but something is deeply, fundamentally wrong.
You’re Arthur Hastings. You work as a "Redactor," which basically means you spend your days censoring unhappy news to keep the public in a state of blissful, drug-induced ignorance. Then you stop taking your Joy.
Suddenly, the colorful wallpaper peels back. The "delicious" steak you were eating at the office party turns out to be a bloated, disgusting rat. Your coworkers realize you’re a "Downer"—someone who isn't taking their meds—and they immediately try to beat you to death with pipes. It’s an incredible opening. It’s one of the strongest hooks in modern gaming history, actually. But for a lot of people who picked up We Happy Few back in 2018, the actual game didn't quite live up to that initial punch to the gut.
The Identity Crisis that Defined the Game
The biggest hurdle We Happy Few ever faced wasn't the bugs or the weird AI. It was an identity crisis. When Compulsion Games first showed off the trailer at E3, everyone assumed it was going to be a "BioShock killer." We saw a linear, narrative-driven immersive sim with deep social commentary. We expected a tight, scripted experience where every room told a story.
Instead, when people actually got their hands on it, they found a procedurally generated survival game.
You had to manage hunger. You had to manage thirst. You had to sleep. If you didn't craft the right clothes, the NPCs in a specific district would realize you didn't belong and attack you. It was jarring. The community was divided because the game's marketing promised a story, but the gameplay loop demanded you spend twenty minutes looking for clean water and scrap metal.
Compulsion Games eventually realized this. They spent a massive amount of time in Early Access trying to pivot, injecting more scripted story beats into a world that was still, at its heart, a randomly generated sandbox. This is why the game feels so lumpy. You’ll have a brilliant, handcrafted mission involving a mad scientist or a paranoid neighbor, followed by three miles of walking across a generic, empty field of red flowers. It’s weird. It’s frustrating. And yet, there’s something about it that keeps people coming back years later.
Life in Wellington Wells is a Social Stealth Puzzle
Most stealth games are about staying in the shadows. You hide behind crates. You crawl through vents. In We Happy Few, the shadows don't help you much once you're in the city. You have to hide in plain sight. This is where the game actually gets pretty brilliant, even if it's clunky.
You have to blend in. If you run, people get suspicious. If you jump over a fence, they get suspicious. If you aren't wearing a nice suit in the wealthy districts, the Bobbies will try to bash your head in. But if you wear a nice suit in the "Garden District"—where the poor, starving Downers live—they’ll see you as an aristocrat and attack you for being "posh."
Then there’s the Joy itself.
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Taking the drug makes the world look beautiful. The music gets upbeat, Arthur walks with a jaunty spring in his step, and the rainbow trails follow your every move. It also makes you "blend." But take too much, and you'll overdose, becoming a twitching mess. Don't take enough, and you'll crash, making you look tired and suspicious to the Joy-happy citizens. Managing your "Joy meter" while trying to investigate a dark conspiracy is a stressful, unique mechanic that few other games have even tried to replicate.
Three Characters, Three Very Different Traumas
One thing people often overlook is that We Happy Few isn't just Arthur’s story. Once you finish his arc, you play as Sally Boyle and Ollie Starkey. This is where the writing really shines.
- Arthur is the classic "everyman" driven by guilt over what happened to his brother, Percival, during "The Very Bad Thing" (the game's euphemism for the German occupation of England).
- Sally is a chemist who creates a special flavor of Joy. Her gameplay is completely different because she isn't a fighter. She has to use perfumes and needles to knock people out, and she’s secretly harboring a baby—which is a huge deal because children have basically vanished from Wellington Wells.
- Ollie is a former soldier who is literally losing his mind. He talks to a hallucination of his dead daughter and has to manage his blood sugar because he's diabetic.
By the time you finish all three perspectives, you realize that none of these people are traditional heroes. They are all deeply flawed, broken individuals trying to survive a society that has collectively decided to forget its own sins. The lore is dark. Like, really dark. We're talking about a society that traded its children to the Germans in exchange for being left alone, and then invented a drug so they wouldn't have to remember doing it.
Why the Critics Hated It (and Fans Loved It)
When you look at the Metacritic scores, they’re... not great. They hover around the 60s and 70s. Reviewers at the time were rightfully annoyed by the technical state of the game. On launch, We Happy Few was a mess. Items would clip through the floor. NPCs would T-pose in the middle of a chase. The procedural generation meant you often saw the same three houses repeated over and over again.
But if you talk to the cult following the game has now, they don't care about the repetitiveness. They care about the atmosphere. There is no other game that captures that specific British "Keep Calm and Carry On" spirit twisted into a horrifying nightmare. The voice acting is top-tier. The sound design—specifically the muffled, distorted voices of the masked citizens—is genuinely unsettling.
The game also tackles themes of state-sponsored drug use and the danger of "toxic positivity" long before those became common talking points in social media discourse. It asks a hard question: Is it better to be miserable and know the truth, or be happy and live a lie?
Survival Mechanics: The Good, The Bad, and The Annoying
If you're going to play this game in 2026, you need to know what you're getting into. It is a survival game first.
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You will spend a lot of time picking locks. You will spend a lot of time searching trash cans for "rotten potatoes" so you don't starve. This can get tedious. Thankfully, the developers added a "Story Mode" that basically turns off the survival requirements, letting you just enjoy the narrative. If you’re here for the BioShock vibes, play on Story Mode. If you want the "Don't Starve" but with 1960s British people vibes, play on the harder difficulties.
The crafting system is actually quite deep. You can make everything from padded suits to electrified batons. You can brew different types of Joy, or even "Sunshine," a fake drug that makes you look like you're on Joy without actually rotting your brain. It's a game that rewards preparation. If you just run into a bunker without the right tools, you're going to die. Simple as that.
Practical Tips for Surviving Wellington Wells
If you're jumping in for the first time, don't play it like a brawler. You are not a super-soldier. Even Arthur, the "strongest" fighter, can get overwhelmed by two or three angry citizens with umbrellas.
- Always carry a change of clothes. Keep a Torn Suit for the slums and a Proper Suit for the city. If you wear the wrong one, you're dead.
- Don't ignore the side quests. Some of the best writing in the game is hidden in the optional encounters, like the cult of people worshipping a piece of yam or the "mister kite" enthusiast.
- Watch the Bobbies. They have sensors that can smell if you're a Downer. If you see them, walk—don't run—and try to find a phone booth or a bench to sit on.
- The DLC is actually better than the main game. I know that sounds weird, but the DLCs—They Came From Below, Lightbearer, and We All Fall Down—are much more linear and polished. Lightbearer is a psychedelic rock-and-roll trip that is worth the price of the Season Pass alone.
We Happy Few is a flawed masterpiece. It’s a game that tried to do too much at once and tripped over its own feet, but the world it built is so unique that it’s impossible to forget. It’s ugly, it’s beautiful, it’s frustrating, and it’s brilliant. Just like a bad trip, really.
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How to get the most out of your playthrough
To truly appreciate what Compulsion Games built, you have to look past the jank. Start by focusing on the "Redactor" notes in the early levels; they provide the essential backstory for why the world ended up this way. Avoid the temptation to fast-travel everywhere, as the random encounters in the Garden District often trigger some of the most interesting environmental storytelling. Finally, if you find the survival mechanics getting in the way of the mystery, don't feel guilty about dropping the difficulty. The game's soul is in its characters and its haunting, neon-lit streets, not in how many cups of water you've drank.