Artis Impact Wants You To Be Curious

By Willa Rowe | August 18, 2025 | 1:00pm

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It is easy to get the wrong impression of Artis Impact. The game’s protagonist Akane—a white-haired woman who wields a sword, wears a black outfit, and is accompanied by a floating robot—may give you the idea this is an homage to 2017’s NieR: Automata. It isn’t. The game’s Steam description billing it as a turn-based RPG also doesn’t fully ring true. Instead, Artis Impact is an even stranger amalgamation of influences rolled into a single game meant to keep players on their toes—and it is better for it.

Artis Impact runs through its standard RPG setup in record time. After meeting your protagonist (Akane) and learning the stakes of the world and the threat facing it (a battle against evil AI machines, in case you needed more NieR: Automata comparisons) you are let free within a handful of minutes. The only real guidance the game gives you from this point on is a short sentence in the top left corner of the screen. This is the main quest objective, but it soon becomes clear this might be the least important thing you can pursue in Artis Impact.

Once the tutorial section of the game is over, it is revealed that Artis Impact has a loose calendar system. It is less Persona and more Stardew Valley, there are no hard deadlines for anything, but you’ll only have so much time to get things done each day before Akane needs to get her rest. In this free time of the day you can pursue the main quest or get lost in the world that Artis Impact renders so beautifully in its pixel graphics. This is perhaps the most surprising part of the game, that despite its RPG label it should really be played more like a life-sim.

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This is because the handful of cities and towns peppered across the world map are cornucopias of opportunity. NPCs wander the streets, work in shops, or sit on benches and Artis Impact expects you to talk with all of them. This isn’t a game where people are simply set dressing; everyone has a story to uncover if you are willing to ignore the main quest pinned to the corner of your screen. This is all accomplished by a conscious engagement with the in-game community Akane is a part of. Working part-time jobs will earn you currency but it will also increase Akane’s reputation with characters, who then will open up the game’s sidequests.

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These quests can be short, one-off events or lengthy storylines with multiple steps that play out over the game’s runtime. You might not think engaging with the game’s almost excessively detailed banking system, which allows Akane to open an account and build a line of credit to use in shops when you don’t have the currency on hand, would lead to anything narratively rewarding, but (as is the running theme with Artis Impact) you’d be wrong. These will also be the moments that resonate the most. An early but meaty quest about an unhoused many in Akane’s town best exemplifies how Artis Impact’s writing shines in the smaller scale stories separated from Akane’s main objective.

The excessive detail of the world itself only reinforces the detail of the characters. Artis Impact always has a mechanical link to its narrative beats. This usually revolves around time in some way. Each NPC has their own schedule to keep track of and some quest steps can only occur on certain days at certain times. And with finite time, everything has to be weighed in Akane’s (and the player’s) mind. A part-time job could get you some cash but then you won’t have time to go to the bank and wait (something the game will make you, the player, actually do) in line, or maybe you’ll wander into town at the wrong time and end up getting mugged. All of this and more can and will happen.

None of this is signposted for the player. Beyond the little objective in the corner of the screen, there is no way to track or even know you’ve stumbled upon a sidequest. To fully see the breadth of content Artis Impact holds, players need to have a sense of curiosity for the world that isn’t reliant on an objective to be followed mindlessly

In this way, Artis Impact’s design ethos meshes with the retro-inspired pixel art the game uses. Both harken back to an age of RPGs unburdened by the constant need to signal to players all the content available to them. It’s an exceedingly rare ethos to find, especially if you look in the AAA space. Bigger budgets and longer development cycles mean that every part of a game can be measured in time and money. Major publishers no longer deem it worth it (either financially or temporally) to create content that could be missed by the majority of players. This is why games such as Elden Ring or Dragon’s Dogma 2 feel so unique in the modern landscape, as both are content (as Artis Impact is) to let players be guided by curiosity first.

Artis Impact bets on players entering its detailed world and being driven to uncover the secrets it holds. It’s a gamble, but one that creates a much better experience for the player. Those who meet the game on its terms are met with a complex web of interconnected stories that, while largely inconsequential to the main plot, deepen their connection with Akane and her community. You could play the whole game with your eyes glued to the singular objective in the corner, but then you’d only be seeing a fraction of what is right in front of you.

Willa Rowe is a queer games critic based in New York City whose writing has been featured in Digital Trends, Kotaku, Inverse, and more. She also hosts the Girl Mode podcast. When she isn’t talking games she can be found on Bluesky rooting for the New York Mets.