Review - Volume

Review by Jon Evans 
Formats reviewed: PS4

Developers; Just Add Water Games
Publisher; Mike Bithell
Formats; PC, PS4, PS Vita 
US Release date; Out now EU Release Date;Out Now - PS Vita Version TBC

With two years of development under its belt, the stealthy Robin Hood reboot, Volume, has finally made its way to Desktop and and PS4.

Long term readers of Backwards Comptible will know we have been following Mike Bithell Games for a while, and you can read an interview with Mike himself from last year's EGX festival here. Mike is well known for making 'the game about rectangles’ otherwise known as Thomas Was Alone. Bithell's tenedency to be both outspoken, self-effacing and transparent about the development of Volume has provided a fascinating insight into how games are made, but has also shown how a combination of good business sense and social media savviness can help make a games developer 'incredibly lucky' to be as successful as he has been.  

This time round this is not a one man operation, and it shows. Bithell has brought a team around him to produce a game of polish, gloss and purity with a strong, compelling core gameplay mechanic that is missing from many bigger budgeted games. A major feat indeed from a game that has been made, in part, from tools anyone at home could use.

Volume is a dystopian spin on the Robin Hood Story, with the eponymous central character, Robert Locksley, playing a futuristic vigilante who wants to expose Gisborne's company which has turned England into a corporate, locked-down array of states. He has decided to use The Volume, a 31 x 31 grid of projected holgrams, to demonstrate how to steal items and information from the rich rulers of England. Much like the YouTubers of today, showing gamers via lets play videos, he is teaching the people of England the stealth techniques they need to apply to go into the libraries, data centres and galleries unnoticed and steal precious items via a rather wonderful 3D simulation.

Rob has sequestered the simulation AI, Alan, voiced by the ever chirpy Danny Wallace, to be his companion on his dangerous journy through Gisborne's secret Empire. BAFTA wining Wallace is on form again and has proved that you don't need a big name from an American TV series to provide an interesting and believable artifical entity. Charlie McDonnell (a well known YouTuber in his own right - Nice meta-casting there Mr B) has put in a brave performance as Rob, but has a more limited range in terms of voice acting. To be fair, when cast next to the massive talent of Andy Serkis's Gisborne, McDonnell has a lot to live up to and presents the young, polcitically naiive Locksely as a fairly believable character. One particular cameo from a well known Games Critic sending himself up is also particularly funny. 

Speaking of humour, there is plenty of that in Volume. It is well balanced and doesn't take you away from the more serious aspects of the story. The narrative is revealed via in-game text boxes, and story exposition from the main characters. There is a pleasing mix of plot reveals via newspaper extracts, magazine articles and internal memos and emails within Gisborne's company communicaitons. All of these can be found while exploring the various simulations  in the Volume. The story can be initially confusing, but read all the text tidbits, and it becomes clearer as you progress through the game, with some lovely, quirky sub-plots hidden away. Bithell has done his research on the Robin Hood legend, and it is peasing to see all the modern twists he has put on the themes and characters from the original ballads.

The story is intelligent and witty, with some fun real-life references, but also hints at an underlying anger, or perhaps frustration, of the capitalism of modern day companies. Bithell has made a subtle commentary here, and it is up to the player to guess at the connections he is making, but a simple google of the history of some of the larger game publishers might shed some light. Nevertheless he doesn't shove it down your throat, and makes for a sympathetic scaffold for the central plot.

The game is presented, therefore, inside this 31 x 31 grid, hidden from Gisborne's eyes in a dark and mysterous warehouse, complete with soft focus exterior-lit windows, server PCs and wrought-iron stairs all subtly at the edge of your vision as you play. It's a clever juxtaposition, reminding you that you are working in the secret and safety of soltitude but you are still not immune from the tension that oozes from the threats in the simulation. The Volume is a glorious glowing maze of coloured blocks and stylised detail that combine to create rooms, corridors and traps through which Rob navigates, collecting gems which eventally activate a glowing final checkpoint. There is a lovley reverse-explosive effect as each Volume loads and all the fragmented polygons coalesce into sight, an effect which Alan is very proud to show off within the game, and feels like a cheeky humblebrag from Bithell. Nevertheless it is something which was still enjoyable to watch right up to the last level.

Also populating the Volume are varous NPCs who are there to hinder your progress. These come in varous guises, and are presented as guards or soldiers with instant-'kill' weapns. It is important to note that death is a bit of a misnomer. Being 'shot' by a guard resets your progress to the last checkpoint, forcing you to re-evaluate your strategy. Bithell has happily said that the MGS VR missions were a big influence on his design, and it is the best anaolgy for you to bear in mind when playing, however this is a homage rather than a theft.


Each Volume has a varitety of tools for you to use to help distract the guards, and give you virtual 'powers' to help you make your way without crossing the 'sight-cone' of the enemies. At the begining of the game, you have a ‘Bugle', a tool that bounces a sound packet off the walls and allows you to activate this packet somewhere along the trajectory. Using the physics of bar billiiards, you generate a series of pinging lines, showing the path of travel of your sound packet. Let that packet fly past the guard, press R2 to activate it and the guard walks off in tha direction, allowing you to walk past unnoticed. The Bugle is one of many varied tools, but interestingly all non-lethal. Bithell wanted to make a game that didn't involve death, and he has done a great job of that, however the tension of being caught still remains and is cause for some serious heart-thumping moments. Other tools are available as you progress through the 100 levels, and create a good variety of challenge and strategy and keeps the game fresh right to the end. 

You also have a pervasive timer on your screen, to add to the tension but which also creates an element of replayability as your run-thorugh times are displayed on a leaderboard. Much like golf, there is a 'par' time to beat, and it was interesting to see how you improve as you play more of the game. Inevitably Volume will be great speed-run material and there were already some pretty amazing times displayed. One thing to bear in mind is the level of challenge. Volume isn't a difficult game, and can be played through fairly quickly, which is great for the more time-starved gamer who finds the worlds of Skyrim or Mordor daunting. It is possible to ‘cheese' the system by running to checkpoints when discovered, advancing your progress when the guard’s position is reset after you reload. Bithell has responded to feedback about this. He plans to update the game on PS4, with patch 1.1 (already available for the Steam Version), which gives you three difficulty options, ‘Freedom’, which is the current version of the game where all checkpoints are as they are, ‘Lockdown’, which removes the checkpoints when you are discovered, forcing you to be more careful with your stealth, and ‘Execution’, which has no checkpoints at all. The very nature of the way Volume is set up is the ability for the game to develop and change over time and this will be explored later on in the discussion of the level editor, but having played the game on Freedom, the fact it can be replayed with these new settings actually adds value to the game. 

At its heart Volume's central gameplay is fun, addictive and maintains interest. Bithell and his team have created a great game to play, with very well designed levels that look beautfiul, are interesting, varied and unquely designed, including the UI elements and character profiles. Daz Watford, Volume's artist, should be credited for his involvement with the look of the game and its in world characterisation. We'd love to see real-life trading cards or perhaps a Top-Trumps game of Rob, Gisborne and all his rich cronies. David Housden’s Orchestral soundtrack which marries modern techniques with the traditional is both haunting, dramatic and blends well with the tension of the game. The crash of strings and choral ullulations as you are discovered by a guard is comparable to the alert sound from Metal Gear Solid and hits you physically as you dash to cover with hands shaking. Volume is a high-quality example of the content that can be produced by a smaller studio with the developmental freedom to create what they want. 

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Review Copy provided by Mike Bithell Games
Images courtesy of Mike Bithell Games and screen captures from reviewer's PS4.

The Level Editor

Included with Volume is the ability to create your own levels. As with Little Big Planet and Sound Shapes, you are able to make levels that look and play exactly like the ones found in the game. The difference here is accessibility. Due to the very nature of the restrictions put in place, levels are quick and easy to make and the toolset is not too mind-boggling in its range. This limit makes the Volume level editor one of the most satisfying and compelling creation tools of any game. Despite the 31 x 31 grid seeming small, there’s plenty of range for complexity, imagination and challenge.

You are presented with the blank Volume floor you see in the main game before the holograms activate. You move your target reticule, a square on the floor that snaps to the grid, and can instantly ‘draw’ floor tiles and walls to block your path or provide cover. The one requirement is to a level target to give your character somewhere to run to and complete the level. Without this you cannot save or upload your level to the online community.

You can drop NPCs into your level and draw their patrol routes, as long as there is floor for them to walk on. You can even set the rotation they spin their vision cone and the duration they move between these points. It makes for some very tight level design, and provides plenty of opportunity to tweak. As well as floors and walls, you can litter the level with props such as flower pots, statues, computers consoles, wall hangings and other fittings, each easily rotatable. You can also add in clickable text boxes, to give your player some interesting reading while they are playing and make your level actually have a soul of its own and give you a chance to inject your own humour.

All the various elements can also be cosmetically changed using a series of sliders that change the hue, saturation and brightness and make the gorgeous colours you see in the main game.  At any point you can play you level and test it out. This is where the tweaking really comes into play. The more you play, the more you realise how much work has been put in to ensure the levels are bug free and playable. Many times it was possible to set up a checkpoint that placed your player in a perpetual death loop as he respawned next to a guard. It is also interesting to see how the level evolves based on gameplay rather than looks, in terms of giving the player chances to hide at the last minute, be near a wall tall enough to bounce a diversion off it, or just create some cover from those terrifying vision cones. If you fancy playing our final creation in the picture below, search for ‘Millennium Falcon’ in the online Gallery.

It is well worth giving the level creation tool a go, but possibly after you have completed the full game to avoid any spoilers. It is possible to play through the whole story, just in levels created by users, as long as they have allocated the correct character for each level, and it does present the opportunity for some really interesting content to be created in time, as well as allowing the developers to add more at a later date. Due to the nature of the creation tool, Volume’s development team can make some pretty rapid changes based on player feedback, (although these are quicker on Steam compared to PS4 due to Sony’s slightly longer certification process) and it is an exciting prospect to see what will come next. Keep an eye out on Backwards Compatible for future updates about Volume.