You may say that OFK isn’t an actual band, however that wouldn’t precisely be true. Its members — Itsumi, Jey, Luca, Carter, and Debug — are digital, fictional characters that put out actual music. Songs like “Follow/Unfollow,” “Fool’s Gold,” and “Footsteps” have been revealed by Sony Music Masterworks and launched on Spotify and different music streaming platforms. Unlike Hatsune Miku or League of Legends’ Okay/DA, nevertheless, OFK aren’t megastars — no less than, not but. They’re only a group of mates beginning to make music collectively.

We Are OFK is the group’s interactive biopic unfold throughout 5 hourlong episodes. Each of those episodes is tied to OFK’s 5 songs on their debut EP, overlaying the buddies’ and band’s progress on their option to the large launch.

Image: Team OFK

Developer Team OFK’s inventive director, Teddy Dief, wished to place OFK separate from digital megastars like Okay/DA, and focus as a substitute on a a lot smaller, extra personable story. We Are OFK’s first two episodes had been launched on Aug. 18 — every subsequent episode was launched weekly from there.

The recreation’s dreamy, pastel world opens with Itsumi Saito and Luca Le Fae, two co-workers making a vogue mech online game for an enormous company studio. They’re overworked and underpaid, their inventive visions undervalued in an setting the place all selections come from the highest. Itsumi’s world is consumed by heartbreak and Luca Le Fae is doing a whole lot of breaking hearts after they’re joined by an outdated buddy and music producer, Jey Zhang. Carter Flores ultimately joins the band for visuals and FX, pulling of their holographic AI cat Debug for vocals.

It’s a really LA world, or relatively, it represents an outsider’s concept of LA. It’s all neon lights, creamy colours, and dreamy folks with dreamy outfits. These characters look impossibly cool, which made me scoff at Dief’s preliminary feedback on the PlayStation weblog, which detailed Team OFK’s need to create band members that had been extra relatable and down-to-earth than the likes of Okay/DA.

Image: Team OFK

My disbelief lasted about six seconds into enjoying We Are OFK. Each of those characters is good, hilarious, and all flavors of chaotic: Itsumi is new to Los Angeles and mourning a breakup, and struggling to determine if enjoying keyboard is her true calling. Luca Le Fae is a hopelessly romantic singer-songwriter who’s simply been unceremoniously fired from his job. Jey Zhang is a gifted and sought-after producer who’s balancing her mother or father’s notion of her life together with her personal. Carter Flores is a programmer and visible results artist who’s hesitant to let different folks into their previous life, and the creator of Debug the holographic AI. The entire recreation is undeniably queer in probably the most refreshing manner, particularly in comparison with The Last of Us Part 2, which I performed not too long ago for the primary time. We Are OFK has each queer pleasure and wrestle, however by no means in a manner that feels merciless.

We Are OFK is extra like a TV collection than a recreation; the bigger plot unfolds by itself, however the participant dictates dialogue and textual content choices all through the story. These don’t have a huge effect on the unfolding narrative, however I feel that’s the purpose. My decisions are much less about influencing the course of occasions, and extra about making We Are OFK’s world my very own — one thing intimate, though different gamers will inevitably make the identical decisions.

Image: Team OFK

Each episode ends with a music video for the accompanying track. The movies themselves are tiny little minigames wherein I maneuver characters by way of summary, colourful scenes that bounce alongside to the rhythm. The interactivity remains to be restricted, whether or not that’s corralling cats in a single video or chasing neon lights in one other.

We Are OFK’s story continues to get higher with every episode and with every chaotic textual content message. The characters are fictional, however they don’t really feel any much less actual. This is a collection that asks questions on friendship, creativity, and the problem of creating one thing genuine — and the solutions are all the time complicated.

We Are OFK is out on Mac, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and Windows PC.

We Are OFK was launched on Aug. 18 on Mac, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and Windows PC. The recreation was performed on Nintendo Switch and Windows PC utilizing a pre-release obtain code offered by Team OFK. Vox Media has affiliate partnerships. These don’t affect editorial content material, although Vox Media could earn commissions for merchandise bought through affiliate hyperlinks. You can discover further details about Polygon’s ethics coverage right here.