How to Hack: the Game

Mr.Robot:1.51exfiltrati0n.apk Review

Telltale Publishing / YouTube

Bethany Berg, Photo Editor

Mr. Robot, the growing and ever-popular hacking-based television series you may or may not have heard of, now has its own mobile game. If you haven’t heard about it, here’s the gist: it’s the love child of classics like American Psycho and Fight Club, with a cyber-security focus. It revolves around a group of hackers called “fsociety,” who are out to rid the world of the debt caused by the 1% of the population, bringing everyone to an equal ground.

This isn’t like any game you’ve played on your phone before. Sure, you might’ve played Flappy Bird, Neko Atsume, Temple Run, and other games on your phone that have kept you from the seemingly eternal pit that is free time boredom. They’re all games with different modes of play: survive as long as you can, or just leave food and toys out for your virtual cats. You don’t have to wait to play. Anytime, you can tap the app’s icon on your phone and game to your heart’s content.

The thing is, this game isn’t like that. It makes you paranoid, keeps you nervous. Immerses you in this popular, and sometimes scary world, for seven whole days.

Night School Studio already had my heart after producing Oxenfree earlier this year, but teaming up with Telltale Games and the Mr. Robot team made this yet another experience to remember. You start the game with finding a phone on the street, and before long you’re pulled into Mr. Robot’s fsociety team, talking to unknown numbers with pre-written choices and paths to choose from. The game takes place over the course of several real-life days, filling in missing plot points from the show’s first season.

Even though there were hours where gameplay ceased, I still found myself never explicitly bored. The writing was fantastic, Mr. Robot’s writers really nailed that connection of character voices in texting just like they would sound in the show. It’s a great form of gaming, as I can go off and do other things, and come back when there are new notifications about jobs and messages.

Unfortunately, with the wide amount of choices to choose from, you’re bound to make some mistakes. In all of the cases of hacking recon for the team, small clues are given through different people messaging you, and depending on which question or answer you send, you’ll either pass, or end up with your number blocked, and the mission failed.

If you’ve ever seen Mr. Robot, you know it’s a paranoia-filled experience. I won’t give anything away, but if you’ve wanted to see what goes behind the scenes, Mr.Robot:1.51exfiltrati0n.apk is the perfect place. But if you haven’t heard of, or looked into the show yet, this game is still a scary eye-opener to how easy it is to get your identity stolen or your phone hacked. Now, I’m going to go change all of my easy-to-guess passwords based on family and the things I enjoy and stop myself from erasing everything about me from the internet.