Beholder: Conductor Turns A Routine Train Journey Into A Morally Twisted Nightmare
The Beholder series has never been afraid to put ordinary people in rather horrible situations. You are essentially forced to work in accordance with the totalitarian regime and spy on innocent people in their own homes. The latest instalment, Beholder: Conductor, is a little different though, and is basically a spinoff. It takes the familiar idea and moves matters to the railroad as you board a train known as the Determination Bringer.
So, is Beholder: Conductor a journey worth embarking upon, or should you let this particular train pass you by?
Life Aboard The Determination Bringer Is Anything But Ordinary
Beholder: Conductor sees you taking on the role of Winston Smith, the newest conductor on the Determination Bringer. To maximise efficiency, he’s received the same experimental drug as Carl Stein in the original Beholder, which reduces the need for sleep and food. Despite being a mere conductor, it’s not a job where you can just relax and casually collect tickets. The Motherland has rules to enforce, suspicious passengers to monitor, and plenty of unpleasant work for anybody eager to boost their career prospects.
Initially, you’re slumming it in the carriage near the rear of the train where the regular citizens board, but the long-term goal is to reach the upper class, VIP areas at the front. The layout of the Determination Bringer is similar to that of Snowpiercer – the titular train in the film of the same name. Instead of fighting though, accruing money and Authority Points is the way to make your way through the carriages here.
Surveillance, Suspicion And Tough Moral Choices
After deciding between Intern and Elite Official difficulty, there’s a nice little tutorial to ease you into the goings on. Compartments must be prepared for newly boarding passengers to use, while their documents and tickets need checking for mistakes. Any discrepancies could be innocent, sure, but in this society, almost everything is treated as a potential crime and you have to be meticulous. If you let them off, you’ll risk losing favour with those who employ you, and so every single check feels important.
Much of each journey between stations is spent spying through keyholes and rummaging through luggage. Illegal searches are particularly tense because passengers can return and catch you in the act. Not only must you work quickly, but every item has to be put back where you found it in order to avoid suspicion. Fresh discoveries and passenger interests uncovered via searching or general observations can then be logged at the computer, providing money and AP. It’s a bit thrilling to be honest and some evidence might be useful enough to make a violation report.
For violations, there’s this regularly changing list of prohibited items and activities to keep an eye on – it’s brilliantly absurd. The wonderfully dark humour in play here sees apples, singing and antidepressants all outlawed at various points. Strangely, carrying a knife is apparently fine though. Reporting somebody causes officers to beat them and drag them away, ensuring that even the funniest regulations have grim consequences. It’s a necessary evil to make progress, but even that might not be enough to further your career and when desperation sets in, there’s a temptation to plant evidence and frame an unsuspecting passenger. The morality of it all is great.
Story Choices And Multiple Endings Encourage Replayability
These routine duties are broken up by quests involving passengers, the New Tomorrow group of revolutionaries, and even fellow employees. Within my opening hour, I had bought drugs for a colleague, adopted a stray cat and agreed to deliver cupcakes to a group of officers. Unfortunately, they were laced with sleeping drugs as part of a plot to free a prisoner, whoops. The fleeing passenger then fired a gun, bringing Winston’s career and lonely life to an abrupt end. Upon reloading and choosing a little differently, it was someone else who faced an early demise. Such drastically different outcomes demonstrate how seemingly minor actions can send events down another path.
Having multiple endings further down the line, depending on your decision, presents a genuine opportunity to replay multiple times. Replayability is only a factor if you are having a blast playing however, and there are some aspects which might mean it’s a one and done experience for you.
Uneven Pacing And Awkward Controls Hold The Train Back
The balance on Elite Official difficulty is absolutely brutal. At one stage I was tasked with acquiring 20,000 Authority Points, but barely managed half despite reporting many people and planting evidence like a ridiculously corrupt copper. When offered a second chance, it also ended in failure and another ‘Game Over’ as I fell drastically short of the target. I appreciate the way such demands push you towards increasingly awful behaviour, but the targets appear slightly unreasonable when the game provides so few opportunities to reach them. Perhaps start off as an Intern if you want to avoid any frustration.
No matter the difficulty, the potential for a less enjoyable playthrough is exacerbated by the uneven pacing. Too many journeys from one station to another pass with very little happening, and even when it does, the interesting encounters are outweighed by the forgettable. You can speed up the time, but waiting for a task or a passenger worth investigating is still pretty dull at certain points. More frequent incidents would make the financial and Authority Point targets seem fairer, while keeping the surveillance from becoming repetitive.
And then there are the controls, which are not the most intuitive, it has to be said. Beholder: Conductor is an Xbox Play Anywhere title and playing with a controller is noticeably more awkward than a mouse. For example, Winston is moved using the left stick, while the right stick must be used to simultaneously move the camera and keep him in view. Managing both during a simple trip along the train doesn’t feel good. It is playable once you adjust, just never as natural as it should be.
Capturing The Oppressive Atmosphere
Visually, you’ve got the series’ familiar silhouetted characters and a muted, almost lifeless environment. It is not especially attractive, but that fits the oppressive vibe really well, especially for the lower-class carriages. The accompanying music is similarly miserable and ensures there is no escape from the overwhelmingly bleak atmosphere. Reaching the First Class and VIP sections provides a welcome contrast though. Compartments suddenly feature luxurious furnishings and fancy drawers beneath the seats, while the soundtrack becomes far more relaxed. The background music is akin to something you might hear in an expensive hotel lobby. It does an excellent job of showing the divide between the passengers through both visual and audio elements.
A Clever Spin-Off That Doesn’t Quite Stay On Track
Beholder: Conductor does a good job of translating the surveillance and moral dilemmas to a moving train. Inspecting documents, uncovering prohibited items and deciding whether to help or betray passengers produces tense situations, unexpected consequences, and dark humour. It is a shame then that the train sometimes runs out of steam. The occasionally empty journeys harm the pacing, the console controls lack intuition, and the demands on Elite Official difficulty can feel extra brutal.
There is a worthwhile journey here that’s wonderfully grim, but Beholder: Conductor does fall a few stops short of being an essential trip.
Important Links
Beholder: Conductor Pulls into Xbox Station – Are You Ready to Serve the State? – https://www.thexboxhub.com/beholder-conductor-pulls-into-xbox-station-are-you-ready-to-serve-the-state/
Buy from the Xbox Store – https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/games/store/beholder-conductor/9P1F891M62TD/0010
