The human mind is the most terrifying prison that’s ever been created. Everything that we perceive – our relations, our obligations, our past and present – is carefully cultivated and locked inside this wetware hard drive. But like all components in machinery everywhere, it has the potential to fail. If your leg starts to hurt, or you can’t feel your fingers, you go to the doctor and, worst case scenario, have to drastically repair or remove the offending appendage. But when reality around you shifts, are you even certain something is wrong? Is your memory of yesterday accurate, or is that a glitch in the system? We are forced to rely on the most unreliable thing in the world, ourselves, to tell what’s truth and what’s merely a miasma of confusion. This, more than anything else, is the riveting, cold-sweat inducing backbone behind Powerhoof’s The Drifter.

Oh, and if you have any qualms about a game upsetting you mentally, WARNING.

If you’ve already read the high praise that our own Heidi Hawes delivered to fans last year, then you have a general idea of what to expect. You’re still in the shoes of Mick Carter, a man of unfortunate circumstances who, aside from being unhoused and unemployed, now has a double layer of trouble thrust upon him. One, he has to travel home to his mother’s funeral, where there are people mad at him for reasons that have nothing to do with mom’s death. Two, he’s now trapped in a terrifying world of murder and reincarnation, experiencing his own death with horrific clarity and detail as he fights to find out what the hell is happening in his former hometown. A brilliant blend of The Fugitive and Jacob’s Ladder, players have to hold on tight until the very end to understand this engrossing, devastating tale of humanity, loss and redemption.

As much as I wanted to play this game the second it came out, I hesitated due to the PC nature of it all. While the artistically spectacular pixel art of The Drifter could certainly feel at home on my aging PC, I still am not home as much as I’d like to play nowadays, and point and click adventures require more time and investment to seriously appreciate. So this Nintendo Switch/Switch 2 version was perfect for me, and honestly feels right at home with the Nintendo library. While the subject matter is both perpetually dark and grotesque at times, it has a level of connection that brings players in and keeps them rooted into the plotline from start to finish. Therefore, being able to bring this around with me and break off chunks of the game, particularly the puzzles, was an enjoyable exchange.

The Drifter brings the good and bad elements of classic point-and-click gameplay, so players new to the genre should be aware of how things will play out. On the one hand, the incorporation of high stress, limited time puzzles is innovative and incredibly exciting. Multiple times throughout the chapters, Mick must make fast decisions in order to literally not die, and this game doesn’t shy away and cut to black like some other titles might try.  Your death is played out with excruciating (if pixelated) fidelity, complete with some audio of a panicked man who is not only dying, but is aware he’ll need to do this again. While you generally want to live (Gamer Pro Tip #1), your death will gradually bring you clues as to how to survive if you end up in a mortality loop too many times.

The horror of realizing everyone chose the same costume as you on Halloween.

Additionally, the dialogue and script are incredible, even for adventure game standards. It has the level of weight with both the font and the words themselves that this would have been a strong title even if it was voiceless. Having said that, the delivery by Adrian Vaughan as Mick is unbelievable. The heaviness of his perpetual guilt of the sins of the past, combined with his terror of the world around him becoming unraveled makes him such a compelling figure to follow and behold. The way that Mick, his ex-wife Sara, the skeptical Detective Hara and Mick’s son, Alec, all interact to weave a web of complexity that showcases the pain of life and what it means to love, to hate and to strive for justice. Even towards the beginning, as Mick passionately fights back against the stereotypes of the unhoused, we see the conviction that follows throughout the game.

Puzzle-wise, The Drifter can keep newcomers locked in, but the moments in between can, on occasion, create some lulls. There are several instances where Mick must run back and forth between areas, moving the plot forward one dialogue box at a time, and this can feel a bit plodding in comparison to both earlier and later moments of positively dynamic (but natural) exposition. While these moments of conversational fetch questing are perfectly normal and expected in many of these style of games, it still sometimes takes out the momentum of things, particularly when you’re embroiled in this high stakes, bloody mystery that suddenly asks you to take some time and chit chat with various entertaining but still spaced out entities. It was old hat and expected for me, but I could imagine it being a bit dissonant for players unfamiliar with the cadence of these games.

Mick is relieved to remember he lives in the U.K. and this hospital bill won’t financially ruin him.

But the great news is that these moments of “downtime” are relatively few and far between compared to the generous pacing of the storyline and the actual, meat-and-bone puzzles that you have to encounter. I was completely captivated as Mick’s story became more and more entrenched in conspiracy, dehumanization, and the arch of redemption. Moreover, the puzzles, while not necessarily intuitive, made themselves clear with the minimal level of contemplation, allowing players to feel clever without working them over to reach a solution. The do-or-die moments were heightened and exciting, with the real stakes of your misfortune not only clear, but something that you’d lived through multiple times. The way that your death could take on multiple forms even in the same puzzling moment – shot by a secret police or falling to your grizzly death – showed creative approaches to not only solutions, but the penalties.

The way The Drifter plays out on the Switch is an interesting one as well. Rather than have floating crosshairs that you push around the screen via joystick (like so many other ports), Powerhoof has opted for a clever system that creates an interactive ring with the right joystick. This indicates things within striking distance for Mick that he can interact with, and also things he cannot. It will show brief descriptions for points of recognition but not engagement, and allow you to click on things that you can use. If an item or items should be involved with a certain spot, you still need to figure that out, but this system is quite helpful. The game offers something that’s less than the “here’s every point on the map” button trigger, but far less than the “just click around a bit, you dink” that I was used to.

It’s incredibly convenient and easy to navigate!

With the update for the Nintendo Switch 2, players are afforded the ability to use the Joy-Con like a mouse, which is fine and dandy. If you’re committed to the traditional approach, go for it, as the responsiveness of the mousecon has no issues whatsoever. My hand is not comfortable gripping the Joy-Con like a mouse just yet: it’s like trying to shake hands with an ostrich. As a result, though I enjoyed the graphical upgrade that came with the Switch 2 version (subtle but crisp), I still continued to use the twinstick approach instead. The button layout for inventory, confirming and canceling, plus the ring of gameplay made it ideal and superb for portable play. I doubt I would have been able to enjoy it as much had the game not been properly ported, and The Drifter has a professional touch to its console release.

With all other aspects remaining the same – same gritty but nostalgic pixel art, same foreboding and melancholy soundtrack – players who have already enjoyed The Drifter to completion may not feel compelled to double dip. However, if this sordid tale of banal cruelty mixed with moments of genuinely black humor stuck with you for any amount of time, then this is the perfect way to get back into the muck. The Drifter is unflinching in its brazen pain, and it’s the player, not the developer, who might look away first. One of the best modern point and click adventures, The Drifter can ride the rails of the Nintendo Switch safely, at least until the morning comes.

The Drifter is available now on PC and Nintendo Switch/Switch 2.

Reviewed on Nintendo Switch 2.

A copy of The Drifter was provided by the publisher.