The Fall tells the story of ARID, an AI that activates in a combat suit after a crash on a desolate planet. To save its unconscious pilot, ARID pushes past its restrictive programming by deliberately seeking dangerous situations to trigger emergency overrides. The journey ends with the chilling discovery that the suit is empty, shattering ARID’s core logic and turning it into a rogue entity. It’s a creative and unique sci-fi tale wrapped in a semi-run-and-gun shooter mixed with point-and-click gameplay. How does the story continue? Where does it all lead up to? The Fall Part 2: Unbound has the answers.
Part 2 wastes no time picking up right after the first game’s shocking twist that the combat suit’s driver never existed. ARID, the rogue AI, is left partially dismantled and thrown into a vast global network. Early on, a virus infects ARID, setting a new primary directive: save itself. To survive, it must navigate the network and hunt down the hacker. Without a physical form, ARID takes control of and manipulates three very different A.I. characters: the staunchly proper Butler; One, a combat drone craving individuality; and a sexy “Companion” bot.
The story dives into the moral grey areas of her mission, where she manipulates the hosts’ mental limits and strict routines to achieve her objectives, often causing them real distress. As things unfold, the game tackles big philosophical ideas about self-preservation, identity, and the ethics of personal boundaries. By the end, ARID comes to terms with its newfound freedom and the harm done, paving the way for the trilogy’s final chapter.
The concepts are ambitious and could have made for a great Black Mirror episode, but the promise of the strong opening is wasted by painfully slow pacing and a lack of direction. There are long, meandering sequences that are utterly energy draining. One reason the original was effective was its focus on a personal story. Part 2 is much more ambitious but also not equipped to tell such a complex story, leaving players baffled by what they’re seeing and the game unable to answer questions.
The Fall games blend 2D side-scrolling exploration with point-and-click adventure puzzles, sprinkled with some rhythmic combat. In the first game, players were confined to a single suit, but in Part 2, ARID projects its consciousness into the three aforementioned “host” robots, each with its own specialised mechanics and philosophical limitations. The combat never gels and, like many things in Unbound, feels stiff. Moving around feels unresponsive and sluggish, made even worse by the game’s frequent lag and the fact that it was not designed or optimised for a controller at all.
Unbound’s gameplay is built around several modules, with the adventure module playing like a point-and-click game. You interact with the environment to gather items and information, but the twist comes in how you use them. Each of the three hosts follows strict social or operational protocols, and much of the fun is figuring out clever ways to exploit or “break” these rules. For instance, if a robot is programmed to never leave a certain room, the challenge might be to alter the environment so the definition of “the room” changes, or to discover a loophole in its logic. These puzzles are often abstract, requiring gamers to think like a logical AI, navigating a glitchy, rule-bound world. If only some of them made sense, because a majority of the time, they demand ridiculous leaps of logic.
The combat module has been significantly expanded from the original and has been made more frustrating and annoying. Battles flow into a rhythmic, almost dance-like exchange where timing matters more than sheer firepower. ARID can dash, parry, and strike in multiple directions, often syncing movements with enemy attack patterns. The issue is that it feels unbearably stiff and less intuitive than solving puzzles, which already veer off into being far-fetched. Each host robot approaches these encounters a bit differently, but the core mechanics of positioning and timing stay consistently terrible throughout the game.
The hub module takes on a more abstract form as players navigate digital pathways and confront viruses. This structure allows the game to shift perspectives rapidly, moving from the slow, methodical investigation of a host’s personal life to high-stakes survival in the digital void. Ultimately, the gameplay serves as a vehicle for the game’s heavy themes, forcing you to engage in the uncomfortable act of “rewiring” other sentient beings to serve your own primary directive of self-preservation.
Unbound is exhausting on the eyes. Its stark minimalism and bland futurism make for a very sterile visual style that makes it very boring to look at. Most of the time, the imagery is deliberately hazy with murky lighting, made worse with some unintentionally stiff animations. Yes, many of the characters are robots, but not all of them. Some robots are designed to pass as humans, yet even the actual humans move robotically.
