Tron: Identity Review (AdriftLegend)
TRON:
*Gender
Identity
Do you like graphic novels? Do you like decent storytelling with a hint of that modern political musk that's soaked into every form of media since the mid 2010's? Oh yeah, and do you like TRON!? Well buddy, do I have a "game" for you.
TRON: Identity is arguably the first post TRON: Legacy game to grace our own Grids (and consoles I guess) since TRON: Run/r released back in 2016 and boy does it pick up where we last left off... sort of. These new Bithell (He/Him) games take place on an entirely new Arq Grid, which lore-wise is just a copy of the Grid from TRON: Legacy (without CLU) that was made after "The Miracle" and before "The Purge" took place canonically to ensure the safety and continuation of the newly discovered ISOs, which were basically just some PS1 game disc files that were spat up from the Sea of Simulation. While this does sort of detract from Quorra (Olivia Wilde's character from the movie) being the last of the ISOs, establishing this kind of backup fan-fiction server is a very neat way to create an entirely new Grid, free from the burden of the previous entries and open to a whole new world of possibilities. Like biodigital trees, man!
In this new Arq Grid, you play as Query, a detective program, who's been summoned to TRON Tower the Vertical Slice to investigate a mysterious explosion and the theft of all your banking information, or something just as valuable. Along your gripping investigation you'll meet characters like Grish, who doesn't seem like a bad program despite the game insisting on him being rude to you, Prinz, who is undoubtedly the villain of the story because he's red and believes in the users, and Cass, the first non-binary program (not even kidding)! There's a handful of other characters to meet along the way that flesh out the main story further and the decisions you make DO matter, so there's theoretically reasons to play through it again if you really want to squeeze all the juice out of it or if you're just that hard up for TRON content. There's also a very poorly explained card-based game that occurs when you Defrag a programs disc, but you don't really need to know how to play to get through it, thankfully. Other than that, there's a handful of little dots to click on in the environment to give you more lore to read and a handful of Easter eggs, referencing back to TRON, TRON: Legacy, and even TRON: Catalyst, which is the sequel that will be out by now by the time you've gotten this far into the review.
The real question though is it any good? Well, I would encourage you to play it once and just push past the modern political nonsense, because it seems like it's snuck its way into everything and weeding it out at this point is impossible, but also because this is really the only type of game that it's acceptable to be in. The entire game is completely driven by its story and the political landscape on the Arq Grid (however much Bithell wants it to mirror the real world or not) influences and affects the characters. If you can't explore this garbage in fiction, then where can you explore it? Certainly not the real world, we'd all know Cass is just a dude and we'd all just gaslight him hoping he won't awkwardly cry in front of us again. The story itself isn't all that political really, so it's just an annoying obstacle that you shouldn't let ruin what is otherwise a fun jumping off point for some new and much needed TRON content. So even though you won't always get the dialog options you want (or maybe your character will just choose for you sometimes), and you won't really understand the weird Defrag card game by the time you roll credits, I can still recommend this game to woke leftist ideologs and die-hard TRON fans alike, but ONLY if it goes on sale and you're willing to spend the 2 hours it takes to beat it. Otherwise, I would recommend steering clear of this and supporting some much worthier graphic novels out there if you’re into that kind of thing.
I swear, if Exo gets upset at just one microaggression, I'm coming for you next TRON: Catalyst, and it's not going to be pretty.
End of line.