Is Transistor confusing on purpose? (Game critique)

In my impressions video on Pyre I mentioned I'd like to check out the other games by developer Supergiant. I picked up Transistor in the Steam Summer Sale, downloaded it and was going to limit the session to 30 minutes for an impressions video, when I found myself not being able to stop playing. A couple days later I'd finished the game and said to myself, "well, I guess I need to write a critique on it now". Usually a critique is written to answer a question the writer wants to ask about the game. In this case, I had just played an entire videogame with no clue about what the heck was happening. I enjoyed my time with Transistor, but was at a loss as to what the world was, what had happened to Red, and the influence of her actions for the rest of the game. I was confused the whole time. This video will talk about why I found Transistor confusing, and if the developers made it this way on purpose. Enjoy.

Why is Transistor confusing? The game opens with the main character pulling a strange sword out of a dead body. The sword is always talking to Red. It never shuts up. Naively because of this constant narration, I felt everything I needed to know as a player would be divulged through the Transistor's dialogue. When looking at the bios of the people the Transistor has absorbed, the voice lets us know his thoughts of them. Everything was telling me that all I needed to know about the world, and the important characters in it would be explained through the voice of the Transistor. This was not the case. The most important elements of the characters absorbed into the Transistor are only unlocked once the player experiments with their unique abilities in the three different slots available (as a main attack, as an upgrade to an existing attack, or as a passive skill). This encourages experimentation with all the abilities to unlock narrative information, but the information I unlocked wasn’t successful at clueing me into what was happening.

And just what is happening? Here's my understanding. Red is a lounge singer in a digital world known as Cloudbank. Everything in the city can be changed by popular vote, from the food available to the colour of the sky. This is undertaken by code called the Process. A group of higher ups in Cloudbank decide they want something more. They call themselves the Camerata. Their motto is "When everything changes, nothing changes". They want to make something lasting. The Camerata in their investigation into the Process find a way to control it though the Transistor. They develop it into a weapon and start using it to absorb the most influential people of Cloudbank for reasons I'm unsure of. When they come for Red, she is nicked by the Transistor, causing her to lose her voice. The man she is in love with, takes the fatal blow and gets transferred into the sword. It is his voice we are hearing throughout the game. This act unleashes the Process on Cloudbank, allowing them to change the world according to their own whims. Red is set on revenge. She wants to take down the Camerata for what they've done, to see if she can get her voice back, and to see if she can save her love.

Even if I don't understand the Camerata's motivations, the summary was rather succinct and easy to follow, yes? The problem is I came up with none of this by playing the game. It was from a collection of YouTube videos either summarising the story, or engaging in literary analysis. This isn’t definitive information either. There are parts of the "lore" contested among fans. There are wikis dedicated to the game. I'm all for finer details and motivations being discussed and called into question. It keeps the world of a game alive, but having to resort to analysis just to understand what's going on in the first place left a sour taste in my mouth.

The main reason I kept pushing ahead was how enjoyable I found the gameplay. It's a turn based battle system in real time. Not "real time with pause" such as Pillars of Eternity. More, "real time with planning". Listening to how others played Transistor, I get the feeling the turn function where the player is able to stop time and plan out all their attacks is meant to be used in specific situations, the majority of the game played with real time offense, but I relied on it exclusively. Due to this I needed to keep running and jaunting away from enemies during the recharge downtime when Red can no longer use her abilities. I was surprised by the amount of abilities and the variety of their offense. In these types of games, I’ll find a combination early on that works well, and use it for the rest of my play, but here I kept experimenting with new abilities as I acquired them. While I kept playing Transistor to uncover a narrative understanding, I stayed engaged because of my ever increasing mechanical understanding.

The fun I was having might have been the primary motivator to push me through Transistor, but it wasn't the only emotion I was feeling. Yes I was confused about the world the characters find themselves in. No I did not understand what happened to Red at the start of the game and what the deal with the talking sword is, and no, I didn't understand the Camerata or their motivations, but I understood the emotion of the characters. I understood Red was fighting for her life. This group took something from her and she wanted revenge. I understood there was a special connection between Red and the Transistor, and I understood the decision Red makes at the end of the game. I would have been fine not knowing the details if I understood the beginning and didn't feel like I was playing catch-up for the remainder of my playtime, as now that I know the story and have reflected on my experience, it resonates all the stronger.

I’m now left asking whether Transistor is confusing on purpose. There's such a high level of care given to the art & animation, the audio, and the mechanics, that it feels silly to me to think the story wasn't given the same attention. Perhaps the same way the citizens of Cloudbank vote on what reality is, Supergiant wanted the players to discuss and debate about what the story is. This would be why they locked a lot of the lore behind the player experimenting with each ability. And as I understood the larger brush strokes of character emotion and motivation, Supergiant might have felt this was enough to push the player through alongside how fun the game is to play. Seeing I only cared about Red and the Transistor after my research, I can't say the story told is successful. My conclusion is Transistor was meant to be confusing, or at least vague, but not to this degree.

But what are your thoughts on Transistor? Were you as in the dark as I was? If so, did you continue for the same reasons? What is your overall impression of the story Transistor is trying to tell? I'd love to know in the comments. I'd like to give a shoutout to the videos that helped me understand the game. A story discussion by Superbunnyhop, An analysis by Foxcade, and a literary analysis by Games as Literature. If you'd like to know more, I recommend giving them a watch. Links are in the description, as well as the link to my Ko-fi page! If you enjoyed this video, I'd love for you to buy me a coffee. If you'd like to help in other ways, please give the video a like, or subscribe to the channel if you haven't already. Until next time, I hope you're all having a wonderful day.