Bright Memory: Infinite is one of the most impressive projects mostly developed by a single person that I have ever seen.

Bright Memory: Infinite is a first person shooter released by FQYD Studio and published by Playism on November 11th, 2021 for PC, Xbox, Xbox One, PS4, and PS5. FQYD Studio consists mostly of 23-year-old Zeng “FQYD” Xiancheng. Zeng is a former game developer who left his job in 2019 after the success of the first game, Bright Memory, to develop the sequel full time. I received this game as a perk for buying the original Bright Memory back in May of last year, but it currently sells for roughly $20 on Steam. In this review, I’ll be digging into this game to see if you should spend your time with Bright Memory: Infinite.

GRAPHICS 10/10

It is impossible to discuss this game without discussing the graphics. The graphics and performance in Bright Memory: Infinite are absolutely amazing. This game even managed to look great and run very well on an older ASUS ROG 1080 STRIX with only a few framerate drops in some of the more graphically intensive areas. For those of you lucky enough to have something with ray tracing, the graphics at max settings are gorgeous. Unfortunately, I can’t speak for the performance at max settings since nobody accepts kidneys as payment for a 3080 TI.

As for the model work, the enemy and weapon designs are quite good overall. The human enemies and weapons look like actual futuristic military equipment rather than what would happen if you blended a bunch of military equipment together and yote it mightily at the Unreal Engine. The supernatural enemies are heavily inspired by Chinese mythology and also look great. A reviewer from Destructoid also pointed out that the supernatural enemies have very big Ray Harryhausen vibes and I can’t unsee that now. Honestly, the only gripe I have with the graphics is that a couple of the models later in the game (a helicopter and some kind of James Bond-esque supercar) don’t quite match the futuristic aesthetic and seem out of place in the cutscenes where they appear.

SOUND QUALITY 7/10

To get the positive stuff out of the way, the soundtrack by Jeff Rona absolutely SLAPS. Imagine Hans Zimmer scoring a wuxia drama along the lines of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and you’ll have a pretty good idea of what this sounds like. It also helps that it reminds a bit of the Taiwanese heavy metal band Chthonic, which is a personal favorite of mine. I also really like the sound design of the weapons and enemies. The weapon sound design in particular deserves special praise since everything has an appropriate level of oomph for the weapon. 

However, the voice acting for this game is … okay at best. I would describe it as a “90’s anime dub” level of quality, but fortunately it’s not “early 2000’s fandub” quality. In defense of the developers and VA’s, IMDB only lists three voice actors for the entire English cast. Because of this, I can’t be too harsh about the overall quality of the voice acting since every single person in this game voices at least two characters without any of them sounding overly similar. I also suspect that the reason the voice acting (and some other flaws) stick out so much in this game is because Bright Memory: Infinite has such a high level of polish with its graphics and gameplay.

GAMEPLAY 9/10

On the whole, the gameplay for Bright Memory is extremely competent. The gameplay loop is a very fast-paced blend of guns, simple melee combat, and super science/magical powers. The guns are pretty typical FPS fare: an assault rifle, a shotgun, a fully automatic pistol, and a sniper rifle. All of these have special ammunition that grants them additional functionality ranging from “this does more damage” to “I’m now overcome with explosive-induced maniacal laughter”. This overshadows the super science/magic powers for me, but “Force Push” is always going to play second fiddle to “Exploding Shotgun Artillery” for me. Finally, you have a sword with the ability to block gunfire and flail wildly at your opponents. 

The movement feels pretty solid on the whole and has dashes, dodges, slides, wall-running, and double jumps to let you navigate around the environment. This is generally very good and the level design lets you take advantage of it, but there are a few rough spots, such as a place where you can consistently dash outside of the level or some odd bits of level geometry that can get in the way.

The enemy design is pretty solid as well. The human enemies are fairly typical with a variety of grunts armed with an assortment of weapons, and a very large angry berserker dude with some kind of electric club thing. The demons are armed with a variety of traditional weapons, like swords and shields. I was also attacked by 30 to 50 feral hogs during this game. I am absolutely not joking and I refuse to elaborate. 

Unfortunately, several dated gameplay tropes manage to crawl out of the abyss and wind up in this game, such as quick time events, a shoehorned vehicle section, a mandatory stealth section, and a constant stream of tutorials interrupting the gameplay in early missions. Fortunately, these segments are relatively short.

CHARACTERS 6/10

This game technically has characters. Most of the characters in this game just kind of exist to nudge the story along with some sparse dialogue. My notes actually have two main characters listed as “Emperor Demon Dude Guy” and “Other Agent Guy”. The main character, Shelia, is also not spared from the relative lack of development and is also pretty firmly wedged into the category of over-sexualized heroine. Her outfit in the main game isn’t much worse than any AFAB person in the MCU, but the DLC outfits are pretty cringe-worthy. Fortunately, the developers at least have the courtesy to portray her as an extremely competent murder machine in her own game, so it’s better than Black Widow ever got. It’s also worth pointing out that some of these complaints may stem from issues relating to the length of the game and some other issues I’ll be going into in the next section.

STORY 6/10

This game also technically has a story. It’s 2036 and Shelia works for the Supernatural Science Research Organization (SRO) who are investigating some mysterious weather phenomenon outside of some city. There’s an evil group of guys led by General Li who have somehow opened a black hole and demons from Chinese Mythology are coming out of it and it’s up to Shelia to stop them. To be blunt, the story primarily exists to string together a series of over-the-top cinematic set pieces and gunfights, and isn’t something you should try to read too much into. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it’s something that you need to know to accurately set your expectations.

A number of other reviews have stated that the story and characters are particularly disjointed and shallow. I would absolutely agree with this, but I think that it’s worth looking at some possible root causes. The game itself is very short and the story tries to do a lot in a very short time frame, so some story beats may not have been explored thoroughly enough or were simply cut entirely. It’s worth emphasizing again that the development was primarily done by a single person, so there’s only so much that can be done in any area. Finally, the game was originally written in Chinese for a Chinese audience, so some of the nuance may not have survived the translation process or I might be missing some of the cultural shorthand that could fill in some of the gaps.

OVERALL 7.6/10

Stepping back to look at the big picture, there are a few points that need to be discussed. It’s worth reiterating that this game is quite short, my first playthrough of this game was completed in just under two hours. Given that this game is $20, that may give some players pause—but I spent about that much to watch the 2014 Godzilla movie and this was a way better use of two hours. 

Additionally, the game has a few spots that could use a bit of polish. The level design and movement could use some small improvements and the tutorials could stand to be less intrusive. It should also be mentioned that mandatory stealth sections, quick time events, and shoehorned driving sections belong on the ash heap with Bubsy 3D. Finally, the story and characters really could stand some attention from a dedicated writer. I’m not opposed to stories that are a thin excuse to string together a bunch of cool action scenes, but making the narrative less disjointed and giving the characters actual character would be a pretty huge improvement. 

Overall, while this game is laser-focused on producing over-the-top spectacle and is very light on any form of narrative, I really liked it and I’m pretty damn impressed with what FQYD Studio produced, especially when you consider that you could easily feed the entire team with a single extra large pizza. I’d also be lying if I said that I wasn’t stupidly excited to see what the studio’s next project is.

Bright Memory: Infinite was released on November 11, 2021 for PC, Xbox, Xbox One, PS4, and PS5. The PC version was used for this review. The reviewer received this game for free after purchasing Bright Memory.