''Consortium'' is a

first-person shooter First-person shooter (FPS) is a sub-genre of shooter video games centered on gun and other weapon-based combat in a first-person perspective, with the player experiencing the action through the eyes of the protagonist and controlling the pl ...

role-playing video game A role-playing video game (commonly referred to as simply a role-playing game or RPG, as well as a computer role-playing game or CRPG) is a video game genre where the player controls the actions of a character (or several party members) immers ...

developed by Interdimensional Games for Microsoft Windows. The game is set almost entirely on a futuristic aircraft called Zenlil, crewed by a complement with chess-themed ranks. The game was principally financed by the

Canada Media Fund The Canada Media Fund (CMF, french: Fonds des médias du Canada - FMC) is a public-private partnership founded on April 1, 2010 by the Department of Canadian Heritage and the Canadian cable industry. It is used to fund the creation of original ...

by awarding a grant for $500,000 CAD in 2010. After a first failed

Kickstarter Kickstarter is an American public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative projects to life". As of July 2021, K ...

campaign in 2012, $70,435 USD was raised through Kickstarter on April 18, 2013. Consortium was released on January 8, 2014. A sequel, Consortium: The Tower, was released to

Steam Steam is a substance containing water in the gas phase, and sometimes also an aerosol of liquid water droplets, or air. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporizat ...

Early Access on September 21, 2017.

Gameplay

The game features conversational mechanics which allow gameplay to be uninterrupted by conversations: replies are bound to the

function keys A function key is a key on a computer or terminal keyboard that can be programmed so as to cause an operating system command interpreter or application program to perform certain actions, a form of soft key. On some keyboards/computers, funct ...

and an in-game device allows for semi-telepathic communication. The other major feature is a branching story, similar in execution to the ''

Mass Effect ''Mass Effect'' is a military science fiction media franchise created by Casey Hudson, Drew Karpyshyn and Preston Watamaniuk. The franchise depicts a distant future where humanity and several alien civilizations have colonized the known univer ...

'' trilogy, and a character alignment system: both of these allow for every playthrough to be different, even to the point of allowing the player to reveal the meta-plot of the game. While the game is a first-person shooter, combat can be entirely avoided, non-lethal or lethal (in a similar style to ''

Deus Ex ''Deus Ex'' is a series of role-playing video games, set during the mid 21st century. Focusing on the conflict between secretive factions who wish to control the world by proxy, and the effects of transhumanistic attitudes and technologies in a ...

''), and is limited due to the size of the game world.

Plot

The game is set in the mid-21st century, in a timeline where most world militaries have been disbanded in favour of a technologically advanced world police force called the Consortium. The player assumes control of Bishop 6, an elite Consortium soldier. The game's fiction acknowledges that the player and Bishop 6 are different characters, connected through the interdimensional link of the video game.

Non-player character A non-player character (NPC), or non-playable character, is any character in a game that is not controlled by a player. The term originated in traditional tabletop role-playing games where it applies to characters controlled by the gamemaster ...

s may not be aware that Bishop 6 is being controlled from afar. During a flight from

Bulgaria Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Mac ...

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

on the aircraft Zenlil, Bishop 6 must deal with hostile mercenaries while trying to uncover the identity of a traitor within the crew.

Reception

The game received mixed reviews, with a score of 66/100 on reviews aggregation website

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

. Reviews praised the storytelling but noted the amount of software bugs in the game. Interdimensional Games sought to address those bugs with the Master Edition patch, released in April 2014. A retrospective at ''

Rock, Paper, Shotgun ''Rock Paper Shotgun'' (also rendered ''Rock, Paper, Shotgun''; short ''RPS'') is a UK-based website for reporting on video games, primarily for PC. Originally launched on 13 July 2007 as an independent site, ''Rock Paper Shotgun'' was acquir ...

'' reflected on the game's

fourth wall The fourth wall is a performance convention in which an invisible, imaginary wall separates actors from the audience. While the audience can see through this ''wall'', the convention assumes the actors act as if they cannot. From the 16th cent ...

breaking central conceit, and how it was supported by the conversation and dialogue options. It concluded that "None of this would work in another medium. ''Consortium'' offers a solid sample of what we’ve been saying games have the potential to do for a generation."

References

{{Reflist, refs= {{cite web, url=https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/03/19/impressions-consortium/, title=Impressions: Consortium, author=Adam Smith, work=

, date=2014-12-30, accessdate=2017-05-19 {{cite web, url=https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/12/30/consortium-retrospective/, title=How To Eat Your Cake: Consortium And The Fourth Wall, author=Sin Vega, work=

, date=2017-05-19, accessdate=2017-05-19 {{cite web, url=http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/consortium, title=CONSORTIUM for PC Reviews, work=

, accessdate=2017-05-19 {{cite web, url=http://ign.com/articles/2014/01/25/consortium-review, title=Consortium Review, author=Richard Cobbett, work=

IGN ''IGN'' (formerly ''Imagine Games Network'') is an American video game and entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San Francisco's SoMa dist ...

, date=2014-01-24, accessdate=2017-05-20 {{cite web, url=https://www.gamespot.com/reviews/consortium-review/1900-6415633/, title=Consortium Review, author=Leif Johnson, work=

GameSpot ''GameSpot'' is an American video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information on video games. The site was launched on May 1, 1996, created by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady and Jon Epstein. In addition ...

, date=2014-01-17, accessdate=2017-05-20 {{cite web, url=https://www.videogamer.com/reviews/consortium-review, title=Consortium Review, author=Matt Lees, work=VideoGamer.com, date=2014-01-30, accessdate=2017-05-20 {{cite web, url=http://steamcommunity.com/games/264240/announcements/detail/1297344598666479277, title=V1.2 Master Edition, author=Interdimensional Games, publisher=

, date=2014-04-29, accessdate=2017-05-20

External links

''Consortium'' official website
2014 video games Fiction set in 2042 First-person shooters Indie video games Kickstarter-funded video games Role-playing video games Science fiction video games Video games about parallel universes Video games scored by Jeremy Soule Video games developed in the United States Windows games Windows-only games Source (game engine) games Single-player video games

Gameplay

Plot

Reception

See also

References

External links