Not Tonight 2 takes you on a journey to get the paperwork you need to free a friend. But can you keep yourself out of trouble along the way?
I am a big fan of Papers, Please and Not Tonight, so, excitedly, I got my hands on the Beta version of Not Tonight 2, getting a taste of what the final game is going to be like. The game allows you to become Kevin, a bouncer and a very good friend. Kevin knows the world has gone sour, that people suck, and that nothing is really okay in America. Kevin also can’t sit aside while his friends get falsely imprisoned.
The game follows his journey to get his friend back. After feeding you a bit of story and allowing you to be a bouncer at a prison, you get into the real meat of what is going on. Your friend Eduardo, who is an American citizen, has been detained by the government for not being a citizen. That’s really odd, and they won’t let him leave until someone brings all of his documents to his imprisonment camp. Some of your friends go across the country in search of some of his items, while you head towards Montana (now Canada) in search of Eduardo’s passport.
When it comes to the actual gameplay, there is a lot of bouncing, checking your texts, and quickly replying to people you meet along the way. The gameplay is split into various chapters, giving you a location, a few different tasks for some sort of bonus app that your friend signed you up for, and a large map to show you where you are and where you are heading. When you communicate with people outside of your job, there is a timer ticking away, making your reactions quick and calculated, as they can change how people interact with you or what you end up getting.
Bouncing, which is how you will earn money for gas to make it across the country, is how it was in Not Tonight – with you looking over an ID, checking for various factors that are explained before the start of the day, and otherwise letting people in. However, in the beta, you actually get shown quite a few different – and interesting – things that you also need to look out for as a part of your job. You will be picking the right toppings for poutine and shooting arrows out at people using balloons to get into clubs. It’s an interesting ride right from the start.
Unlike Not Tonight, your character has an inventory of items which can help you on your journey, as well as a bunch of stats. You will find your health drops each night you work and that your morale drops depending on what you encounter and how you deal with situations around you. The world is going downhill, and every moment spent traveling through it, you are reminded of yourself and what you need to do to take care of yourself.
The characters that you encounter in Not Tonight 2 seem to be really well written, some giving off creepy vibes, others being quite patriotic, and some just being happy people who are content to see someone nice. Discovering more about these individuals and the world around them is interesting and feels like something worth doing as you find out what happened to America.
After playing through the beta, I am impressed and excited for the full release of Not Tonight 2. If you want to see what has come of America, how to get your friend back, and spend some time denying people entry from their favorite night clubs, you should keep your eye on this title.
Not Tonight 2 is currently in development, but in the meantime, you can add it to your Steam Wishlist.
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