I can’t think of any other example of the series, where each following release is progressively worse and more pointless, but somehow Q.U.B.E. manages to do this over and over again. The original game from 2011 was, and still is, a fantastic in its minimalist simplicity first person physics based puzzle game that takes under 3 hours to complete and looks really cool despite its somewhat outdated visuals. And now, after a pointless Director’s Cut and terribly boring Q.U.B.E. 2 we have Q.U.B.E. 10th Anniversary which promises to be an improved and definitive remaster of the original game but in reality it’s… Oh boy…
Alright, so… If you’ve not played any of the Q.U.B.E. games before, the basics are simple – you traverse minimalist puzzle rooms which are filled with interactive elements of different colour and sometimes shape. All of them have a specific mechanic and purpose that you gradually learn to master and new mechanics and ideas are introduced as you go along. It’s a typical first person puzzle game formula, really, and the simplicity of its rules is one of the reasons original Q.U.B.E. was so charming. Another two big reasons were: 1. Really cool looking room transitions that still look good and 2. The fact that the game packed a lot of variety in its under 3 hour length.
All of these reasons are mostly gone in 10th Anniversary release. Even though the game claims to have the original game just “revised”, a lot of what’s here is completely different. Visuals are, more or less, a reuse of the style introduced in Q.U.B.E. 2, which despite being more “advanced” (and now with Ray Tracing too), is far less striking and stylish than the minimalism of the original game. The game looks and sounds far busier than it did in the original and there are times when it looks straight up worse from the artistic perspective. Lots of cool transitions are removed or so overdone that the coolness factor is lost in the noise. And the really memorable (if sadly overdone in the original) dark levels, where only interactive elements and some occasional cubes are emitting light, are entirely gone.
There’s a choice between the original and Director’s Cut as if these are two separate modes, but in reality it seems like it’s a toggle for “enable the other soundtrack and narration”. What that means is that – the game has lots of built in empty transitional corridors that have nothing if you play the original mode and narrative if you don’t. Making this choice almost pointless as the game structure is compromised on any mode you play in comparison to the original title which had next to no downtime between puzzle rooms.
Which sadly extends for the gameplay mechanics too. While the original title wasn’t perfect, and one horrible boxes and magnets puzzle is still giving me nightmares, moments like these were few and the game almost never pushed one set of puzzles for too long. Some of the ideas are still quite novel. The electricity cables that had to enable the interactive elements were neat. The already mentioned dark set of levels was cool, if a bit hard on the eyes. Light reflecting puzzles were very simple to understand but fun to do. The magnets were pretty neat… The game had a new trick up its sleeve up until the ending and it felt fun.
For whatever reason, despite following the overall same structure as the original, 10th Anniversary removes a lot of mechanics and puzzles and switches them for something far more obnoxious and annoying. It does keep a lot of the puzzles more or less intact, but so many things are just gone. Cables that power things are not here, dark levels are not here. Light reflecting puzzles are changed, with some parts redone in a worse way, and best parts cut entirely. Instead we’re given a few mechanics from Q.U.B.E. 2, like knocking open the doors with things attached to magnets, which gets boring very quickly. A lot of retained puzzles just take longer, not being any more fun. And the final puzzle of the main game is just horrendous and is far worse than any of the puzzles in the original game.
I started playing Q.U.B.E. 10th Anniversary thinking that I’d be happy to recommend the title to those who haven’t played the original. And I was interested to check the new content too. But by the end I was so fed up with the game I didn’t want to see it anymore. This version is straight up worse than the original game and apart from the ability to remove the dumb narrative, even Director’s Cut is a better game. I don’t understand what happened with the series and how such a fun and simple idea turned into something that is both frustrating and sleep inducing, but… Well, that’s what happened.