What a wild ride, and so much game for free.

The Shadow Over Cyberspace was everything I've come to expect from a Fiction Factory Games title, and then some. There may be a few light spoilers in this review, but I will try to keep it as vague as possible.

TL;DR - If you can handle an emotional story with some psychological horror elements, I highly recommend this. There is only one possible jump scare near the beginning of the game and it is telegraphed well beforehand. And if you end up liking this - go check out the other FFG titles!

I admit that was a bit skeptical of this release when first announced, I'm generally not too keen on horror games. I was determined to give it a fair shake, and I'm so glad I did. Mr. Gagne's subtle-as-a-sledgehammer commentary on the direction of the modern web, the fear of not knowing what the future may hold, and the feeling like you have a short time to make something important happen hit me in an incredibly cathartic way; the nostalgic wrappings of the late 90s/early 00s and references to other games in the wider FFG Cinematic Gigaverse were just icing on top.

As with other FFG titles, there are tons of accessibility features baked in, from being able to change to a more readable font, self-voicing, turning off moving/flashing images, and even a "cheat" bypass for the hacking minigame, which was a huge relief as someone who is objectively bad at Minesweeper :3


I initially thought that the representations of the Old Ones were a little stereotypical, but I spent a couple days analyzing my opinion before mentioning something in the Discord. I had come to the conclusion when I brought it up that I was probably being a bit too harsh and was missing some kind of subtext, which we eventually determined was actually a criticism of Lovecraft's actual stories. All of the Old Ones eventually subvert their respective stereotypes, and by the end of the game found I could relate to all of them on some level or another.

All in all, a fantastic experience that I'm glad I stuck it out for. As always, I'm looking forward to the next release from this amazing one-man dev team.