‘Paradigm Island’ Is Presenting Me With All Kinds of Questions, and I’m Dying To Get to the Answers (Demo Impressions)

As you all know, I’ve been running through Steam Next Fest demos all week. Normally, I’ll put them together in a Two-Game Tuesday-themed article. But I’ve run into one that I need to fly solo on. Paradigm Island is an isometric narrative RPG, similar to Disco Elysium. And the short demo I played has me begging for more.

‘PARADIGM ISLAND’ WANTS YOU TO QUESTION EVERYTHING

In Paradigm Island, you play as Mike, a kid who was taken in by a group of mercenaries as a child. On his birthday, he’s finally allowed to go on his first mission with the group. Which comes, of course, just as the group is finally heading home to actually rest. The mission has you checking out an abandoned oil rig, and when you get there, it’s clear something has happened. There are dismantled robots lying on the ground, and it just feels off. You get sent off to explore the ring with Remy, a bit of a surly Frenchman character with an expertise in tech.

You have the standard setup for games like Paradigm Island. When you want to take a particular action, either in-game or during dialogue, you roll for a skill check and go from there. Dialogue choices in the game are plentiful, and I can see the potential for truly shaping Mike into the character that you want him to be. He can be aggressive, passive, dismissive, and more. It’s really impressive just how many options you get to respond to. Paradigm Island wants Mike to be as individually representative of you as possible.

At one point on the rig, Mike finds himself confronted by a red, ghost-like figure. But no one else but him sees it. And that is as far as I’m going to go concerning the ghost man. Because the interactions with him get far more interesting from there and are clearly going to be a point of the overall story. Near the end of the Paradigm Island demo, you can choose to befriend one of the robots left behind on the rig, and I would guess that it becomes an integral part of your team/story if you choose to keep it.

sign me up

The story beats I’ve seen to this point have interested me a great deal. The dialogue is great. And early on, you can tell Paradigm Island wants you to consider the nature of fear and power vs love. I need to see this story through. And as if all that wasn’t enough for me, the game has a Black main character. I can’t say enough how important it is that we keep seeing that. I can’t wait to check out the full game when it comes out in July 2025.