Syberia: The World Before - The Final Preview

ign.com:

Syberia: The World Before is the fourth entry in the two-decade-old Syberia adventure game series. It spawned from the mind of the late Benoit Sokal, and in Syberia: The World Before, Microids studio is keeping the flame of the narrative adventure game burning bright. With an intriguing world, engaging puzzles, and a fascinating narrative, I am genuinely curious to see how the rest of the story plays out and see how these characters' relationships intertwine after playing the opening three chapters.

The beginning of Syberia puts you in the shoes of Dana Roze, a young woman who is trying to build a career as a pianist returning to her home of Vaghen – a town facing tensions leading up to the Second World War. Unfortunately, out of the two hours I got to experience so far, I only played as Dana for a short period of time, and while I didn’t get too much out of her story, it did help establish some world building especially for someone like me who is new to the series.

I found the puzzles to be pretty straightforward early on, with tasks consisting of looking for a simple object to progress through the story like a pen or a key. But later on there were others that turned out a little bit more complex than I expected, which was a pleasant surprise. However, at other times I found myself stuck due to a lack of knowing there was another piece of the puzzle that was available to me, or that it was easier to solve with a mouse and keyboard than a controller, the way I played most.

Benoit Sokal created a setting that is similar to what we know of the real world, but the industrial industry is more advanced where you will see automatons doing human actions such as driving vehicles and playing music. An ongoing organization brought