SummaryStep into the shoes of a government official in a top-secret department of the Orwell surveillance program. Given the power to both uncover and fabricate "the truth", how far will you go in the service of your country? Season 2 of Orwell, the award-winning surveillance thriller.
Developer:Osmotic Studios
Orwell: Ignorance is Strength
Released On:
Feb 22, 2018
Metascore
Mixed or Average
74
User score
Mixed or Average
7.2
My Score
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All Platforms
Metascore
Mixed or Average
74
67% Positive
4 Reviews
4 Reviews
33% Mixed
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Apr 11, 2018
85
Orwell sends intense, cold shivers down the spine of the player/supervisor. As long as he's willing to read a lot.
Apr 2, 2018
80
An interesting sequel to one of the best games of 2016, delving further into the role of government as an all-seeing eye with interesting questions about privacy and truth. Doesn’t add much to the original’s formula but still well worth playing.
User score
Mixed or Average
7.2
40% Positive
12 Ratings
12 Ratings
57% Mixed
17 Ratings
17 Ratings
3% Negative
1 Rating
1 Rating
Mar 27, 2018
9
Not impressive as the first season but it's always a simple and appealing game. I found this second season a lot less "conspiracy" and more realistic. We see the influencer tool at work every day, in real life. Entering data chunks now makes 10 minutes pass, so we need to be better at picking the relevant ones. And even if there are no attacks to be thwarted, there are moments of tension! I loved it! I saw three endings out of four and I will play it again to try the last one. The length of the game is 3-4 hours. Thinking that you'll want to play it again at least once, it's 10 euros for 6-8 hours of fun. Not bad! :D
Jun 23, 2022
8
There was a good amount of improvement to Ignorance is Strength over the original Orwell but there was a few instances where it took a step back as well. One thing I thought Orwell lacked that the sequel fixed was voice acting for the phone calls. It was not only a nice feature to add but the voice acting was well done. You can also now influence social media by finding data chunks that fit a certain narrative. The feature itself was decent but it kind of tied into one thing I didn’t like about Ignorance is Strength and that was the perspective. In the original you were doing ethically dubious deeds but were at least trying to find a bomber. In the sequel your objective felt far less worth the effort after the first chapter or so. One thing I will say is that I fully believe many governments would take part in the kind of petty actions that happen in this game. While I was a bit disappointed in where the story went I at least enjoyed the characters and the twists and turns they took as well as how the sequel tied into the original. It takes place at the same time as the original with you working on a totally separate case although it does overlap slightly. One more issue I had was that once again I found that the game didn’t stay true to what it asks of you. Your boss says to leave out data that doesn’t matter but at least a couple times I had to add, what I deem to be, subjective data chunks that were more opinion than fact in order to progress. I played Ignorance is Strength on Linux. It never crashed and I didn’t notice any bugs or spelling mistakes. There are no graphics options. Alt-Tab didn’t work. The game saves on exit but there is just one save file so it always gets overwritten. The game is capped at 60 FPS. Game Engine: Unity Graphics API: OpenGL Input Used: keyboard and mouse Game Version Played: 1.1.6771.24898 CPU Usage: 4-19 % RAM Usage: 1.7-3.3 GB Overall I would say that Ignorance is Strength is on par with the original Orwell. It does some things better, some things worse, so is overall a wash. If you enjoyed the original you should enjoy this sequel as it is very much the same style game play as before. The story and characters are worth exploring. My distaste for some of the story may really be praise if that is what the developers were going for. I finished the game in two hours and forty four minutes and can say it is worth it’s current price tag of $11.49 CAD. My System: Intel i7-6700 | 16GB DDR4-3000 CL15 | Intel HD 530 | Mesa 21.2.6 | Trisquel 10.0.1 | Mate 1.24.0 | Kernel 5.18.5-gnu
Apr 2, 2018
79
Osmotic Studios provides yet another sharp critique of our age with their own flavor of dystopia that tends to sync with our world. Though this second installment successfully manages to immerse the player into the role of a governmental investigator, it falls a bit short on pacing and character development in comparison to the original.
Apr 4, 2018
76
The second chapter of Osmotic Studios's conspiratorial saga closes with an episode that adds - finally - to the experience genuinely new game mechanics.
Apr 11, 2018
70
Orwell: Ignorance is Strength approaches the relevance to which it aspires, but not until late in its final act.
Mar 29, 2018
60
Orwell is brimming with potential, but it feels like the sequel was rushed to ensure that it could comment on the state of the world in early 2018. But extensive private data collection, political turmoil, and pervasive surveillance aren't going anywhere, which is why the game's namesake, George Orwell, has remained so perpetually relevant. If there's a third Orwell game, hopefully Osmotic Studios will find more to say about it.
Feb 26, 2018
tbd
I don’t understand the logic of breaking a small game up and then releasing it within the same 30 days. There’s a decent chance that the elements introduced in Chapters 2 and 3 (March 8th and 22nd) will elaborate this into something far more gripping and involved, and I’ll eventually look back at this first chapter as a slow start. But by using this peculiar release method, all the emphasis is on a fussy and ultimately not very interesting introduction.
Mar 26, 2018
8
Not so impressive as the first installment, with fewer episodes (3 versus 5), fewer characters and a more straightforward story. The voice acting really didn't convince me this time. On the other hand, the "on paper awesome" tool, the Influencer, is an interesting idea, although pretty under-utilized and only used in the last episode. Overall it's more of the great Orwell gameplay we're used to, with a confusing second episode (a lot of people got stuck, according to the forums, including me) and a not-so-satisfying ending. But I haven't seen the other endings. Just MY ending. Go play the game and see for yourself. When it's on sale.
Jun 24, 2020
7
I had a lot of fun with Orwell: Ignorance Is Strength and am hoping for more installments.
Apr 12, 2019
7
ORWELL: IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH is, like the first Orwell game a hard to describe, but it a very enjoyable experience! In Orwell, you are the investigator that is using a "Big Brother" look-a-like tool to investigate a political instigator, in parallel events to those of the first game. Like in the first game, your choices and your analysis of the suspect and events can allow interesting outcomes, that so many times make you feel that you are not playing for the good guys anymore, and with the new "Influencer tool", not present in the first game, you mess around more with the social media channels and the influence that it poses to the masses. An awesome experience that I fully recommend.
Apr 6, 2023
6
The plot of this game takes place almost simultaneously with its predecessor, and interesting mechanics have been added. However, the plot leaves much to be desired and the duration of the title, compared to its predecessor, is truly negligible. In addition, the presence of only the English language means that, at least in the written and non-vocal parts, the user must have a very good command of the language. Personally, I believe that the addition of other languages would have been more appreciated and would have made the game more immersive and enjoyable. The story does not involve the user enough and many of the information found are not really useful to understand what is happening.
May 22, 2026
3
Sehr enttäuschender Nachfolger. Nachdem der erste Teil so spannend war, bleibt die Story in diesem Teil flach. Die Prämisse ist interessant und auch die neuen Mechanismen zu "Fake News" sind nicht langweilig, aber insgesamt werden sie einfach zu wenig genutzt. Vor allem ist der Titel viel zu kurz, endet abrupt und mit einem völlig unbefriedigenden Ende.
