Ghost In The Machine

As humanity half stumbles, half gleefully sprints towards a number of possible extinction level events, the role that Artificial Intelligence will play in our doom is being increasingly scrutinised. As it stands what passes for AI will more likely hasten the end through the obscene demands it places on our resources than by sending killer robots after us but, whether its silicon malice or our own stupidity, AI apocalypses are very much the topic du jour, making the release of Dreams and Machines timely indeed. 

A new RPG from Modiphius, the game takes place on Evera Prime, a distant planet colonised by humans and now cut off from the home-world. As it happens isolation would be only the start of the Everans problems. Having speedrun the whole warring nation states become a unified global authority thing, their new techno utopia would come to a crashing halt as, surprise surprise, the Builder -the AI system built to make life so sweet- did what AI systems do best and promptly tried to wipe them out.

If that sounds at all derivative well the good news is that there’s actually a lot more weird stuff bubbling away under the hood of Dreams & Machines. From the various philosophically inclined factions who existed, and maybe still do, before the war to what actually made The Builder go rogue in the first place there’s lots of interesting ideas to explore. Importantly though none of that is required reading to start playing as the game takes place a good two centuries or so after the war (humans won at a terrible cost in case you wondered) when new communities are emerging amongst the ruins of the past. 

Dreams & Machines then is less about desperate last stands and more about rebuilding society after a fall. Life on Evera Prime may be hard but this is not a relentlessly grim might-is-right world where tyrant warlords rule over feral gangs of cannibal halflings. Rather this is a game about community and finding strength in others, about trying to build a better world and trying to not repeat the mistakes of the past.

Now, if that all sounds just a little happy-clappy for you, or worse like some Lib Dem local council simulator, it is worth noting that Dreams & Machines is also very much a game about exploring trog filled under-cities and fighting the giant murder machines that occasionally stir from their digital dreams and embark on terrifying rampages. See maybe we can have it all.