I can’t read the title of OneShot without hearing Eminem sing “don’t miss your chance to explode” right afterward. But that mental deficiency likely doesn’t apply to the thousands of people who fell in love with the purple-hued puzzle RPG back in 2016. If you’re one of those people and you’re in the mood for a portable version to replay, good news. OneShot: World Machine Edition is a remastered version that’s compatible with Steam Deck and is coming to PC this month.
This edition is available on Nintendo Switch from 2022, but will hit Steam on September 30. It has been “completely rebuilt for modern portable consoles,” say developers Future Cat. “With an all-new engine, new UI, new hidden collectibles, support for more platforms, and more.” Owners of the original game will get it with a 50% discount on Steam (But only during the first week of release.) There’s also a gallery with character stories, a “music box,” a game art browser, and a selection of wallpapers for the fictional operating system that will now be available in the game.
OneShot was originally created in RPGMaker, and it pushed that confused DIY engine to strange limits that—at the time—felt pioneering and sometimes vaguely unsettling. It exists in the same realm as self-aware games like Pony Island or Doki Doki Literature Club, repeatedly breaking the fourth wall and addressing you as both the player and your computer’s controller of the environment. But those PC-centric quirks made it unplayable on consoles. This edition is essentially a remaster to address that.
“I’ve never played a game like OneShot,” John said in our review. “It’s also been a really long time since I cared so much about the main character in a game, to the point where the decisions actually mattered to me. And that’s a lot for a game made in RPGMaker. But it’s a game that does things with this lovely engine that I never thought were possible.”
It’s possible that this edition will dilute some of that magic. In the original game, you sometimes had to navigate through file directories on your desktop as part of the story. But the fictional operating system shown in the trailer for this edition is meant to be a stand-in for your folders. Again, this makes sense for Steam Deck and Switch. I don’t know if it’s worth the price if you already own the original, but for novel players who want to lie in bed while they adventure, this is probably the best way to go.
