You can now download the troubled computer game Paranoia: Happiness is Mandatory from Epic Games and Steam.
Based on the tabletop RPG, it was first published in 2019 but vanished in a legal fight. That tussle settled out of court, and the game has returned.
As noted by Darryl Mott, Mongoose Publishing, the current Paranoia TTRPG license holder isn’t involved.
Tension between Eric Goldberg and Greg Costikyan, the game’s original designers, and Bigben (now called Nacon) were why the game was removed from sale.
On release, Paranoia: Happiness is Mandatory was buggy and poorly reviewed.
The French site Gamekult found evidence of more drama. Neither Eric Goldberg nor Greg Costikyan were impressed and listed many major bugs for Nacon to fix before releasing the game. As we know, Nacon released the game anyway, and perhaps they had the right to; the resulting legal tussles were settled, and the case was dismissed.
Steam’s short game says;
Lead a team of four Troubleshooters of dubious loyalty, who (mostly) obey orders from Friend Computer, a paranoid and irrational artificial intelligence. Inspired by the classic games of the CRPG genre, experience the first official adaptation of the cult role-playing game!
There are only a few ratings for the game so far, since it’s return, and on Steam there’s more thumbs up than down but perhaps it’s the die (six times) hard fans that grabbed it first.
Quick Links
- Download Paranoia: Happiness is Mandatory from Epic Games and Steam.
Why not leave a comment below and get to know other Geek Native readers.