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KARMA: The Dark World was developed by Shanghai-based Pollard Studio and released yesterday by Wired Productions for PC and PlayStation 5. A version for Xbox Series X|S, which according to the store listing will also be playable on Xbox One, is planned for a later date. At gamescom, we had the opportunity to speak with a developer and play a preview version, which you can also see in this video. Some of the scenes from the demo and the preview version are from later on in the game, making it virtually impossible to understand the already mysteriously told story. Even after completing KARMA: The Dark World, some questions remain unanswered, but let’s start from the beginning.
The year is 1976 and we slip into the role of Roam agent Daniel McGovern, who works for the Thought Bureau of the Leviathan company. We find ourselves in an alternate reality in which the German Democratic Republic (GDR) discovered something after the end of the war and developed a technology called “Mother”. Mother commands Roam agents and extracts their thoughts in “Braindives” – even Agent “0007” J. Bond and S. Bridges aren’t spared. In Braindives, we delve into the minds of the other person, a process recently explored in Split Fiction, which we’ll also be examining very soon. As a Roam agent, Daniel’s job is to use a sort of virtual reality headset to enter the minds of suspects and thus gain new insights. For example, as in the demo, we must investigate an alleged theft by former scientist Sean Mehndes. Due to the constant shifts in reality, the line between our own memories and those of the suspects gradually become blurred and a monster is starting to haunt us. In addition, we learn more about the dark underpinnings of the autocratic system, such as the blue pills that workers are supposed to swallow to essentially work 24/7, and, above all, about experiments with a black substance that we repeatedly encounter throughout the game. KARMA’s not all dark and gloomy, the game’s love story is in fact one of its best parts.
KARMA: The Dark World continually manages to surprise us, both in its narrative and its gameplay mechanics. The gloomy look is suddenly replaced by a hand-drawn presentation. While in one moment we’re exploring an old town house, solving environmental puzzles, and discovering optional notes and audio logs, the game quickly transitions to us becoming a small puzzle piece in a monochrome world, luring monsters into traps in increasingly difficult dungeons or fighting an evil witch by lowering the menacingly rushing in water with our trusty camera, making the witch visible and photographing her back while she’s distracted by the propaganda on the television. Over the course of the game we experience the story from several different perspectives.
Rachel Weiss wants to escape her strict parents’ home and ends up being forced to surrender herself to the patriarchal, misogynistic system. The brilliant English voice-over and the great score by Geng Li send shivers down our spines in moments like these, just like striking images, such as the numerous shoes lined up next to Rachel’s bed, a tower of old televisions that serves as a Christmas tree for the workers trapped in the Leviathan hamster wheel, or Sean’s apartment, which is furnished with red curtains and checkerboard parquet flooring – an iconic mystery TV series comes to mind. The setting and costumes also fit well into the portrayed era. Although we find numerous references to books, films, series and games, KARMA: The Dark World offers enough of its own creative ideas to make this journey unique and worthwhile.
Towards the end of the game, you may need a bit of patience, as you’ll spend large portions watching long, but admittedly very high-quality, cutscenes. To fully understand the multi-layered story, it may be necessary to play the approximately six-hour campaign a couple of times. Optional puzzle boxes scattered throughout the game world prove to be real brain teasers, even though they’ve been toned down a bit compared to the ones in the preview build. They make you want to revisit individual chapters and collect all of these beautifully designed figures. The Chinese dub also seems to be of high quality, which we isn’t always the case with the German translation, considering quite a few spelling errors.
left to right: Puzzle in a preview build and in the release build
 
The game also supports Nvidia’s new Multi Frame Generation technology, which is supported by GeForce RTX 50-series graphics cards. Even with an RTX 4070, KARMA: The Dark World runs consistently at maximum graphic details in 1440p and the Unreal Engine 5 title never crashed on us. KARMA’s also said to be optimized for the PS5 Professional, running in native 4K resolution at a consistent 60 frames per second, although we haven’t been able to test the console version yet.
Final thoughts
KARMA: The Dark World is an intense, entertaining experience containing a fresh setting, a thrilling, intricate story and a superb presentation. The game’s striking look combines the style of the contemporary Eastern Bloc with Orwell’s 1984. That being said, the Thought Bureau is at times very reminiscent of the FBC building in Remedy’s Control. Though, KARMA isn’t just a series of references to Twin Peaks, James Bond, Inception, Death Stranding and Metal Gear Solid. Pollard Studio has not only managed to set up an all-encompassing mystery that’s a joy to unravel, but also hand-crafted numerous fun gameplay mechanics, even if we only get to enjoy them for a few minutes each. Given the solid foundation and the teaser right at the end, we can certainly see another KARMA title to be coming our way soon. If you’re not looking for a challenging game, are in favor of horror games and aren’t afraid of a brainfuck here and there during your Braindive, we can highly recommend trying KARMA: The Dark World yourself.
Wired Productions provided us with KARMA: The Dark World for PC, which we used to create the screenshots.
