Name: Animal Farm.
Age: 75.
Appearance: 2020’s hottest video game.
I think you’re mistaken. Animal Farm is a book. Correction: Animal Farm was a book. But get with the times, man. Nobody reads books any more.
Yes, they do. Answer me this, then. Which would you rather do, read Wolf Hall all the way through or blow up a petrol tanker with a bazooka in Grand Theft Auto?
The first one. You must be old. And anyway, you’re too late. Animal Farm is already a video game, and it’s being released this autumn.
Are you being serious? I am. But don’t worry. The greatest of care has been taken over George Orwell’s anti-Stalinist fable, and the Orwell Foundation has given the game its blessing.
Who is responsible for this game? It’s being co-developed by two studios: The Dairymen and Neria.
I’m assuming they have the highest literary credentials. Well Neria produced Reigns, an award winning strategy game in which you assume the role of a medieval king ruling your kingdom. So in a sense, yes.
This is still going to be terrible, isn’t it? Well, maybe not. Games such as Guitar Hero and Rock Band gave players the chance to reevaluate old songs in a brand new context, so just think how the same treatment could alter our perception of one of the 20th century’s greatest novels.
How do you play it, then? It sounds like a strategy simulator, where you – as a farm animal – have to navigate a path through all the clashing ideologies; imposing your will on the other animals without making them so unhappy that they tip over into outright revolution.
And the end goal is to prevent the rise of Napoleon, the pig based on Joseph Stalin? I guess so.
But without Napoleon, the farm would still be in a state of disrepair. So then maybe you have to help promote the rise of Napoleon.
But he became just as destructive as the old humans. So then maybe you have to elevate him to the point of revolutionary hero, then replace him before it curdles into dictatorship.
Replace him with who? There’s no guarantee that Snowball, Napoleon’s rival, wouldn’t follow his path exactly, given the corrupting nature of power. God, this game is hard.
Do say: “The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”
Don’t say: “This was because they failed to purchase the premium Xbox-exclusive Telling Pigs and Men Apart DLC add-on content pack.”
• This article was amended on 20 August 2020. A previous version wrongly attributed the game to Bossa Studios and made references to other Bossa Studios games.
