The Last Worker – remember: this has absolutely nothing to do with Amazon, honest (pic: Wired Productions)



The last human employee in a giant dystopian warehouse takes a stand against the machines via stealth, puzzling, and dark satire.



Are you worried about the true, human cost of giant corporations whose stock-in-trade is convenience at the sake of everything? Are you concerned that AI and robotics will turn the future into a raging dystopia? The Last Worker is a game which examines those very subjects. In lesser hands, it could have been unbearably bleak, but instead its weapons of choice are lashings of humour and a side order of biting satire.



The Last Worker is the brainchild of writer/director Jörg Tittel – with the assistance of Newcastle-based developer Wolf & Wood, which helped turn his vision into playable reality. Tittel is an outspoken, anti-establishment character and he covers a lot of ground in The Last Worker: corporate exploitation and the gig economy , monopolies that grow by stealth, companies that act like sovereign states, whether AI and humans can work together, and the consequences of blindly consuming content .



It’s a testament to his writing skills that The Last Worker never stoops to didacticism. Essentially a narrative-led game, it contains a surprising amount of poignancy, leavened with some genuinely funny moments, and despite the dystopian backdrop, it’s unexpectedly uplifting. It’s very much an indie game but it’s to Wolf & Wood’s credit that it plays quite differently to anything you might have come across before.



You play as Kurt, the last human employee at a vast (‘The size of Manhattan,’ you’re told at one point) fulfilment warehouse run by a company called Jüngle, which is in no way similar to Amazon. Kurt has a hovering cart and a gravity gun which enables him to navigate the warehouse, picking out customers’ boxed orders and either sending them for delivery or recycling them if they have expired, or been mislabelled or damaged.



An intro shows Kurt falling in love with a female Jüngle employee who was sacked when she became pregnant; now, Kurt lives in the warehouse’s rubbish dump and knows nothing but his job. His only companion is a glitchy assistant ‘co-bot’ called Skew. The pair swap banter, and Kurt seems to have accepted his lot.



Initially, The Last Worker’s gameplay merely replicates Kurt’s working life: every day his performance is rated, and an F will see him being sacked by Jüngle’s CEO – an unbearable hipster type with rainbow-coloured hair. Oddly, the game’s working-in-a-warehouse gameplay, which feels clunky at first, grows on you once you become familiar with the controls.



A certain amount of detective work is required to check that each box’s labels are correct and if they are wrong, you must put the correct sticker on before firing them into the recycling chute. Plus, when, for example, Christmas is deemed over you must send all Christmas boxes straight to recycling.



After a short period of disturbingly enjoyable faux-drudgery, Kurt begins to stray from the beaten path and The Last Worker’s gameplay begins to evolve. There’s plenty of puzzling to be done, and a lot of stealth, as Kurt avoids hostile bots and acquires useful gadgetry such as a hacking tool and an EMP gun.



There are also boss battles and plenty of set pieces, which even include a form of first person shooting. And as the story progresses, Kurt sometimes has to mix his job with other tasks, such as collecting rats to fire at worker-bots.



The Last Worker – most of the puzzles are quite clever (pic: Wired Productions)



Some of the gameplay diversions are more successful than others; The Last Worker can be unforgiving at times and often requires you to be fairly observant. The boss battles and set pieces aren’t easy, requiring both precision and tactical approaches which might not be initially obvious. But that just increases your sense of satisfaction as you progress.



Visually, the game is great, with a comic book graphical style every bit as original and distinctive as both its gameplay and its storyline. It’s a fairly lo-fi, hand-drawn style, which means it looks just as good on the Switch as it does on more powerful consoles.



However, The Last Worker also operates beautifully on VR headsets, including the PlayStation VR2, which adds an extra level of immersive-ness. Although it must be said that the overall gameplay experience doesn’t feel radically different in VR or non-VR.







For an indie game, The Last Worker shows a great deal of ambition: it’s thought-provoking but entertaining rather than preachy and feels thoroughly distinctive both to play and to behold. Even the sound design is good, with a top class cast of voice talent, and some classy music and sound effects.



At times, its gameplay can seem a bit too difficult, but it’s hardly Dark Souls and the sense of challenge helps to keep you engaged. If you like games that get your brain working, tell rich stories, and offer fresh and distinctive gameplay you’ll find all those elements in The Last Worker.






The Last Worker review summary In Short: An entertaining and fiercely satirical evocation of a future corporate dystopia, that manages to be both genuinely funny and surprisingly varied in its gameplay.
Pros: Fresh, constantly morphing gameplay with superb writing and voice-acting. Thought-provoking without being preachy. Great graphics and sound.
Cons: Some set piece gameplay can be fiddly. Stealth and puzzle gameplay is more successful than some of the action sequences. Could offer more guidance at times.
Score: 8/10





Formats: Nintendo Switch (reviewed), Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and PC Price: £15.99 Publisher: Wired Productions Developer: Oiffy and Wolf & Wood Release Date: 30th March 2023 Age Rating: 16









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