Introduction

State of Mind is a contemplative, low‑poly cyberpunk adventure from Daedalic Entertainment that landed on consoles and PC in August 2018. Built in Unreal Engine 4 and shepherded by Martin Ganteföhr (production starting in 2015), the game trades twitch reflexes for dialogue trees, environmental scanning and a fractured narrative about transhumanism and identity. On PS4 the package is straightforward: a single‑player, third‑person experience that leans heavily on exploration, voice performance and a deliberately stylized visual direction. Critics tended to agree its thoughtful more than polished; Metacritic puts the PS4 aggregate at 67/100, and youll find praise for the worldbuilding and visuals alongside consistent complaints about the puzzles, minigames and some control niggles. Im running the numbers and poking under the hood in the review below-expect technical observations first, feelings about the story after, and occasional sarcasm aimed at cinematic sci‑fi clichés.

Gameplay

Gameplay in State of Mind is intentionally unaggressive: theres no combat system, no cover mechanics, no stamina bar screaming for attention. The camera is third‑person by default, and the fundamental loop is about investigation and conversation. Core mechanical elements are interaction, scanning and puzzle/minigame sequences. The scan mechanic functions as the game's "information cursor": many world objects are flagged as scannable, and using the scan provides contextual text or audio that expands on lore, character backstory, or environmental clues. This is a tidy way to marry exploration with exposition without resorting to endless item descriptions, and it keeps pacing under developer control while giving players optional depth. Dialogue drives progression. Conversations branch and occasionally gate access to new areas; the script aims for emergent mystery rather than branching RPG outcomes. The interplay between cutscene‑driven beats and player exploration is where the design wants to sit-think interactive cinematic rather than freeform sandbox. Puzzles are predominantly logic or inventory‑adjacent and sprinkled with short minigames intended to punctuate story moments. Multiple outlets criticized those minigames for being underdeveloped, and the complaints have merit: the minigames rarely introduce new subsystems or depth, so they feel like interruptions rather than meaningful escalation of difficulty. Control fidelity on PS4 mirrors what was reported on other platforms: basic movement, context‑sensitive interactions and a radial or point‑and‑click style of object selection depending on camera framing. Some reviewers called out awkwardness in the controls; PC Games specifically mentioned issues with responsiveness, and while the PS4 port avoids mouse‑specific problems, camera and targeting during tight exploration moments can feel floaty. Theres no clear parity layer for nuanced mechanical skill-this is a story vehicle first-so if you prize tight input loops, State of Mind will test your patience. Pacing is deliberately slow in places. The game expects you to read, listen, and explore rather than sprint. That design choice benefits those who like atmosphere and diegetic detail, but it aggravates players looking for mechanical variety. The strongest technical contribution in gameplay is the scan/interact system which organizes optional data without breaking immersion. The weakest is the minigame suite, which lacks escalation and mechanical hooks that tie back into the main systems.

Graphics

State of Mind's visual identity is the most defensible technical decision in the project. Daedalic chose a low‑poly, fragmented aesthetic-visually inspired in part by That Dragon, Cancer-which intentionally eschews photorealism in favor of stylized geometry and a "shattered" look that mirrors the narrative theme of a society (and a protagonist) breaking apart. On PS4, Unreal Engine 4 drives the scene rendering, lighting and material layering. The result is crisp silhouette work, economical texture usage and a shader stack that emphasizes faceting and edges over microdetail. This choice helps performance: low‑poly models and fewer high‑res textures make GPU and VRAM demands lighter than comparable photoreal UE4 titles, which is a sensible match for a console like the PS4. From a technical standpoint the art direction also does a lot of heavy lifting narratively. The fractured models, sometimes composed of translucent planes and angular faces, enable moments where the world visually glitched into something uncanny-this is treated as a design language rather than a bug. Lighting is stylized rather than physically accurate: color grading and atmospheric haze carry mood more than PBR reflections. Critics who praised visuals often singled out the way the style served the theme; those criticisms that did appear tended to target moments where the stark aesthetic masked readables-small object readouts or UI elements could be harder to parse against the faceted backgrounds. On PS4 the framerate is stable compared to bigger UE4 titles, largely because of the lower geometric and texture budgets. Level geometry is not dense, objects are judiciously instanced, and draw calls are kept in check. Cinematic sequences lean on postprocess effects and camera work rather than hero assets, which keeps streaming simplistic and reduces hitching. Voiceover quality is a mixed bag technically: Doug Cockle (known for Geralt) anchors the lead role with a strong performance, but some supporting voice work was criticized in reviews for uneven delivery and direction. Audio mixing on PS4 keeps dialog intelligible, but there are moments where ambiance and score compete with spoken lines, so subtitles are advisable if you don't want to miss narrative beats.

Conclusion

State of Mind is a technically coherent package with smart tradeoffs: an Unreal Engine 4 build that uses a low‑poly aesthetic to lower platform demands while amplifying the game's themes, and a scan/interaction system that structures exposition in an accessible way. The game's weaknesses are also technical/design choices-minigames that don't scale or integrate, occasional control awkwardness, and a puzzle suite that trades depth for accessibility. Review consensus lands in the "middling but interesting" territory reflected by a 67/100 Metacritic score on PS4, and my own score of 6.7/10 sits in that range. Buy it if you want a story‑forward, atmospheric cyberpunk stroll with clever visual design; skip it if you're chasing tight mechanics, challenging puzzles, or a tightly polished cinematic experience. It's a conversation starter about AI and identity that occasionally trips over its own ambition, but it does so with style and a clear technical identity.

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