A Way Out has a lot of flaws and a lot of heart

[Wilhelm]

Duality is at the heart of A Way Out. It’s a game about two people, designed to be played by two players. It also feels like two games in one. It’s a narrative exploration adventure that’s also an action game. It’s a standard machismo-laden romp that works its socks off to find emotional depth. It is also, somehow, both a game and a movie; a really long movie, interspersed with puzzles and challenges.

A Way Out’s duality extends to its own success as a work of entertainment and art. It is both really good, and maddeningly humdrum.

When I played with my partner, there were moments when we were transfixed, bound together by the characters’ travails, the tasks at hand or high points in the narrative. But there were also moments — usually during long cutscenes — when one of us might drift away to check phone messages or to make a sandwich.

 A Way Out - Leo and Vincent in a theater Hazelight/Electronic Arts
We begin in prison. Players take on the roles of Vincent and Leo, who work together to escape the big house and avenge the gangster who framed them. This entails a negotiation of patrols, shafts, walls and watchtowers, often based on the judicial timing of a helping hand.

While Leo chisels a tunnel behind his cell’s toilet, Vincent watches out for guards. While Vincent searches a subterranean vault for an exit, Leo guides him with a flashlight.

It’s both really good, and maddeningly humdrum
Vincent and Leo’s prison break makes use of narrative devices we’ve all seen before, from Shawshank to El Chapo. The only thing missing is a file in a cake.

Once on the outside, the escapees seek out food, clothing, cash and weapons. They check in with loved ones as well as with old criminal contacts, tooling up for the big confrontation. There are various spaces to explore, such as a remote house, a hospital and a gangster den.

Much of the game is concerned with finding needful things: a can of gas or a long stick. Co-op also means breaking doors open together, coordinating combat and working machines that aid one another. A Way Out directs players specifically, leaving little room for puzzling out solutions. Physical challenges are easy and checkpoints are forgiving, meaning there’s not much repetition.

Dynamic split-screens work cleverly to give players an opportunity to witness one another’s big moments, or to focus on especially crucial beats. The pleasure of these sequences is intensified by the story’s setting in the early 1970s, when cinematic split-screens were all the rage.

The story mostly moves along pleasingly, weaving its way through big action scenes as well as quiet, dialogue-heavy exposition and exploration sequences.

 A Way Out - three-panel view of Leo and Vincent taking fire Hazelight/Electronic Arts
At times, A Way Out feels like a low-budget Uncharted game, in which driving, stealth and combat are paramount. At other times, it’s more like a high-budget narrative game, a kind of walking-together sim, in which the point is simply to discover through exploration.

There’s one especially stunning action sequence in which A Way Out flips from one player to the next, making full use of smart camera work to project urgency as each player fends off pursuers by using windows, drain pipes, air vents and disguises.

Some of the crucial late-game encounters feel like they are going through the motions
But other sequences feel overly familiar, most especially car chases and shootouts, which, frankly, aren’t particularly good. In one shooting scene, I sat back and watched as my partner completed the section without me, undermining the game’s credibility as a truly cooperative experience.

Some moments switch to cutscenes when they could easily have been playable. Others lack the sort of detail we’ve come to expect from more lavishly funded productions. There’s one stealth section in which I was begging for the guards to be just a little less obliging and dim-witted.

A Way Out offers narrative choices every now and again, such as ‘shall we use violence or shall we use guile?’ But these generally lead to much the same place, reconnecting with the linear narrative without much in the way of consequences.

Some of the crucial late-game encounters feel like they’re going through the motions, moving us toward the same cutscenes, no matter how we performed.

Even so, the characters go a long way toward making up for these shortcomings.

Vincent is a likeable, gruff man with an ironic sense of humor and a deep store of useful skills. Leo is a bombastic tough guy with a tender center and some genuinely funny lines. I’d say he’s one of my favorite game characters this year.

The two of them create a solid buddy-movie dynamic in which their secrets are uncovered, layer by layer. There is a genuine bond here, and it moves the tale forward.

A Way Out has many faults, but a lack of heart isn’t one of them
In this respect, A Way Out reminds me slightly of Life is Strange, which tells the story of two teenage girls trapped in a small town. Its use of low-cost but emotionally effective facial and body animations also evokes Life is Strange. But unlike in that high school adventure, the personalities of the fringe characters in A Way Out fail to make much of an impact. Associates, villains and even the protagonists’ wives are drawn in the most cursory fashion, reflecting all the story’s light back to the leads.

This robs the game of the emotional highs it seeks to attain, when the story tries to exploit familial relationships. It’s at its best when the stars are shining on one another.

Leo and Vincent work well as conduits for the players, allowing us to role-play through these two men, and to experience the thrills of escaping prison. The ability to spend time with them, and with my player partner, is A Way Out’s biggest strength, even if the details sometimes lack pizzazz.

A Way Out has many faults, but a lack of heart isn’t one of them. Seeing that heart translated into a cooperative play experience makes the journey worthwhile.

7.5

A Way Out
Platform Win, PS4, Xbox One
Publisher Electronic Arts
Release Date Mar 23, 2018
Developer Hazelight

7.5 Win Score
7.5 PS4 Score
7.5 Xbox One Score