Whispers of a Machine is a point-and-click adventure and a cyberpunk murder mystery. It follows the story of Vera Englund, a Special Agent of the Central Bureau. As an investigator of Violent Crimes, she is sent to the small town of Nordsund to investigate a series of unusual murders.
Warning
This article contains spoilers for Whispers of a Machine. If you want to avoid spoilers, I recommend playing through the game at least once before you read this article. It’s a great game, and well worth at least one playthrough.
Whispers of a Machine starts as a simple murder mystery being investigated by a stranger to the town. Vera has been implanted with “blue,” an injection of nanites that grants her abilities you can use in your investigation. Among them is the ability to scan for DNA, sense people’s heartbeats, and super strength.
You use these abilities to investigate the murder of Karl, an office worker in the village of Nordsund. Scanning his blood gets his genetics on file. Scanning his wounds allows you to determine the shape of the murder weapon – most likely a knife.
When you question the witness, you can detect when he is hiding something by sensing anomalies in his heartrate. This helps you learn more about his secret lover. After figuring out which locker is his, you can use your nanite strength to break it open.
As the story progresses you will gain more abilities based on the choices you make. These can include the ability to imitate other people, regenerate wounds, or send sparks of electricity through people and machines. Depending on which abilities you get, the solutions to many of the game’s puzzles differ.
The abilities Vera gains are based on her personality. Giving empathetic responses will lead to abilities focused on imitation or mental awareness, and being more authoritative will give more aggressive abilities. It’s reminiscent of the Bhaalspawn’s ability system in Baldur’s Gate.
This means every player will experience a different game based on their own personality. In addition, it gives motivation for a replay. Players could explore how the game would differ if you make Vera more empathetic, or make her more of a strict by-the-book detective?
Anyway, the first curveball is thrown at you when Vera is told the murder she is investigating isn’t the one she was sent to help with. This is a second, more recent, murder. The one she was sent to investigate happened the night before in the museum.
What follows is an investigation that leads you to discover two major cults in this post-AI society. There were those in the before-times who believed in the Singularity, that one day AI would become so advanced it would be essentially God. Now the cult known as the Conduit believes that AI can return, and with it a second coming.
Opposing them are EPOS, a branch of Christianity that believes man was created in God’s image and not the other way around. They fought a violent conflict with the Conduit and all but wiped them out. They are once again peaceful in the post-AI world, spending their time in worship of their Lord.
I find these factions to be an interesting prediction, given the elite tech-bros in the USA who are pushing for AI-above-all and the recent opposition to AI from the current Pope. Given that the game came out in 2019, 3 years before Chat-GPT was unleashed on the world, it’s a surprisingly accurate prediction of how things might play out. Perhaps even a warning of what is to come.
During the game, Vera experiences hallucinations of her late boyfriend. They talk about the children they never had, and the power the Singularity could have. Possibly even the power to bring him back. It’s unclear whether these hallucinations are from her own subconscious or a side-effect of taking the Blue. It could even be the ghost of her boyfriend coming back to haunt her.
Near the end of the game it becomes clear that the now-dead members of the Conduit have created what could be the Singularity. Vera is left with a choice. She could allow the Singularity to merge with her and the Blue, potentially gaining the ability to resurrect her boyfriend. But the cost of that could be a second Armageddon, another World War, and another collapse of society.
As I finished typing the command to erase the Singularity from existence my hands hovered over the keyboard. Somehow I could experience what Vera was feeling. What if? What if it was different this time? What if she could have everything she ever wanted and more?
Power like that can be tempting. It can be easy to forget the cost. To stop caring about the harm it could do to others. And to convince yourself that it is possible to do the impossible. All you need to do is believe.
But it’s a lie. An illusion trying to change you. Your life cannot be fulfilled through faith, whether it is in a God that created us or a God we create ourselves. All you can do is keep moving forward. And to do that you need to let go of what you cannot get back.
If you do you could save the world. But even if you only save one person, that’s enough. And if that person is yourself, that’s more than enough.
I press enter, and the Singularity is destroyed.
