Image credit: Rock Paper Shotgun/Devolver Digital

It’s been well over a week since my final swing of Virtue and a Sledgehammer ’s righteous whacking stick, and I’m still finding it difficult to shift the game from my thoughtspace. Having tempted me in with promises of cathartic, base-instinct vengeance against a town of roboticised arseholes, it’s since had me picking through the rubble of my own demolition spree, not so much looking for meaning as trying to parse the abundance of it. I’d gladly invite you to join me in the wreckage.

Virtue’s developers, Selkie Harbour and the apparent nominative determinists at Deconstructeam – previously of The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood – say it’s a "narrative exploration" game. Which is accurate, on both counts. As pictured sledgewielder Pratelle, your most urgent interactions involve breaking shit, be it the walls of your childhood hometown or the android copies of its former inhabitants.…