Much like how Mr. Robot's Eliot Alderson covertly drops code on servers to cause chaos, Telltale Games just released a Mr. Robot game in the guise of fictional company E Corp's new messaging app. Available now for $2.99 on the Google Play and iOS App Stores, Mr. Robot: 1.51exfiltrati0n looks like an enterprise chat client, but it's actually a game called that places you inside of the show's "fsociety" hacker group.
Telltale may be known for quick-time-event-based adventure games such as The Walking Dead and the recently released Batman, but the Mr. Robot game appears to take a different approach. While we haven't finished the game yet, it begins as a text-based experience in which you select one of three responses from a mysterious person who remotely wiped your SD card.
MORE: Mr. Robot Virtual Experience is an Amazing Taste of TV's Future
Developed in collaboration with Mr. Robot show-runner Sam Esmail and the show's technical consultant Kor Adana, Mr. Robot: 1.51exfiltrati0n will play out over the course of a whole week with real-time interactions with multiple running text message threads. The phone you've found belongs to fsociety's own Darlene, so you'll be dealing with her sass over texts, as well as handling the many sides of Elliot and the rest of the fsociety crew.
In these texts, you'll be presented with decision-making challenges that will make or break the group's chances of performing the hack of E Corp that took place in the show's first season. The game also includes possible easter eggs for the show's continuity, as some of the first texts you get are from a public library telling you about your overdue books (which include Nabokov's "Lolita," Joseph Conrad's "The Secret Agent," and Robert C Scaer's "The Body Bears the Burden"). One wonders how these titles relate to the world.
You find yourself in a rabbit hole of information that may be hard to juggle, but is completely immersive.
The early moments of the game may remind some of the moment in The Matrix when Neo is shipped a mysterious cellphone that puts him on the line with Morpheus. You find yourself in a rabbit hole of information that may be hard to juggle, but is completely immersive. The other great thing about the app is that since it looks just like a messaging app, your coworkers or bosses may be fooled into thinking you're talking with a friend instead of playing a game.
The game carries a slightly different name in each store, referencing the actual app file types in question. So it's Mr. Robot:1.51exfiltrati0n.ipa in Apple's iOS app store, and Mr. Robot:1.51exfiltrati0n.apk in the Google Play store. Luckily, no side-loading is required.
