Every so often, a game comes along that you have no expectations for. Maybe it wasn’t on your radar to begin with but you took a flyer on it as you wait for your next anticipated game. Or maybe it’s a studio or game you are unfamiliar with and go in blind. Sometimes they end up being great games; sometimes they are bad. Hope in the City is one of those games I had little knowledge of going in, and came out the other side thoroughly impressed.

Hope in the City is a narrative driven adventure game developed by Loft Sky Games. I knew so little about the studio going in that I didn’t even realize they are a Toronto based studio, which makes sense now considering the story of the game.

Based on real events, you play as a girl named Hope. Hope is a teenager finishing up school. Her father is a surgeon at the local hospital and is getting ready to send her to an art school in Canada. After a day of school, Hope takes her sweet time heading home, as her parents had been fighting and she didn’t want to see it continue. Once she finally heads up, she walks into their apartment to find it trashed.

Hope’s immediate reaction is to search for any clues about what happened. Did her parents just have a really big fight? Did someone come in and rob them? Did someone kidnap her parents, or worse? As Hope searches for clues around the apartment, she begins to piece things together and come up with her own conclusions.

For the next 2 hours, you will move around to a variety of spots in the city as you work to find your parents and what happened to them. I am trying to be as vague as I can be here as I don’t want to spoil the story at all as it really is what you will want to play Hope in the City for. Just know that the story alone is worth the price of admission here.

I also have to give a shoutout to the voice acting in the game. For a small indie title Loft Sky Games did an excellent job casting the voices of the game. Hope in particular is well done and should deserve some love when it comes to best voice acting in yearly game awards.

The Real Events

So much so that by the ending you will be quite invested in what Hope in the City was inspired by. As I mentioned, it is inspired by real events, and to the credit of Loft Sky Games, you can see almost a mini documentary once you’ve completed the game on what inspired Hope in the City.

I haven’t finished watching it all as I only saw the one clip they show at the end of the game. But as soon as I find some time I am definitely going to watch the rest. For a story I had no idea about less than 24 hours ago, I am now very interested in learning more.

Piecing Things Together

The main gameplay loop of Hope in the City is a pretty simple one. The game plays very much like a Life is Strange game where you do a whole lot of walking around and interacting with things and speaking to people and not much else. If you are looking for a game with a lot of intense gameplay, this is not it, but that doesn’t take away from the enjoyment of the game at all.

Hope will look around for clues and when she finds a clue of substance, it will become a thought. As she collects thoughts she can combine them when they connect to form an insight. Finally, she can combine an insight with another thought to form a breakthrough.

The breakthroughs are what really progress the story and shape your investigation. When she makes her first breakthrough, I thought to myself, “Boy, that’s a quick breakthrough; what if it’s wrong?” Thankfully as you learn more, the breakthroughs change.

The one maybe downfall of the mechanic is that there could be a little more branching of how the story goes. I know it’s based on real events so maybe that’s why it doesn’t branch much, but doing so could have stretched out the length a bit or given it some replay value. The only area in the game that I think you can technically miss is the police station, but outside of an achievement, there isn’t much need to go there as you don’t learn too much from the visit.

Verdict

While its lack of many gameplay mechanics might turn some off, the emotional narrative and strong voice acting alone are worth giving Hope in the City a play. The fact that it runs at just 2 hours long means everyone should be able to experience it without the worry of a big time sink. And with the backstory of the game, you may even learn about a topic you had no idea about which is always nice.

Hope in the City was reviewed on Xbox Series X. The game is available on Xbox Series S/X and PC and is currently available in Xbox Game Pass. You can also find our 100% achievement guide for the game here.