State of Mind hands-on — seeing through a tech utopia’s cracks

State of Mind searches for the truth somewhere between dystopia and utopia, exploring the idea of transhumanism and whether it’s better to know an ugly truth or live a beautiful lie. The narrative adventure is Daedalic Entertainment‘s latest title, and it will be out on August 16 on PC and Switch.

In a hands-on demo at the 2018 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), I spent some time as as Adam, one of the six playable characters. I walked around a futuristic park with my wife, Amy, adjusting things to my liking – I could change the kind of music that was playing and add lights and fog to the environment. Unbeknownst to him, Adam is an uploaded consciousness in a utopian virtual world. He soon begins experiencing glitches in his reality, strange distortions and people who appear for a moment before vanishing. These are his first clue that everything isn’t what it seems to be – and it’s also how he gets in touch with Richard, who lives in the dystopian real world.