14 DAY TRIAL // Papers, Please is a game about the way we follow orders, the implications of reaching for freedom and the depressing loop that some people inhabit for their entire life, never able to get enough money to satisfy the needs of their family and save for the future.
Papers, Please is also one of a very limited number of games that comment in a smart way on politics and on how certain regimes suck the humanity out of their citizens.
The regime that leads Arstotzka, the country on which border’s the player serves, is arbitrary when it comes to setting rules for something as simple as getting into the country.
The political leaders are also quick to respond harshly to terrorism and then expand their security measures to deal harshly even with those who are clearly not implicated in any sort of violent action.
The gray and brown colors that dominate Papers, Please and the name also serve to suggest one of the republics that survived the collapse of the USSR and then moved from communism towards a sort of tyranny that sometimes tries to pretend to be a democracy.
Gamers tend to be a group that is little interested in political matters, even if there are groups trying to change this, and playing such a game is a good way of showing how important freedom is to the individual and how an arbitrary state can squash him almost at will.
Papers, Please is also a good example of how one individual rarely has the option to fight back against a rigid system and can sometimes only survive by getting paid to act against his fellow human beings.
The presentation and the mechanics of the game make it a solid one, worthy of playing on its own, but the smart political commentary might be the lasting legacy of Papers, Please.