Papers, Please: 2013 indie hit gets major update

Do you remember the great indie hit Papers, Please? The part where you, as an immigration officer of a dubious length, had to distinguish refugees from spies and terrorists? Well, the game is alive, and how.

Quite surprisingly, this indie hit, which has now been on the market for almost 10 years, has received an extensive update. According to developer Lucas Pope, the 1.4 update in question is “an almost complete rewrite, which I expect will fix old problems and create new ones alike.”

The main change is that the game has switched to the Unity engine, which will hopefully fix a number of systemic issues that have accumulated on modern operating systems and hardware over the years.

This should not only make the game more compatible, but also run faster and more stable. The frame rate, which was previously limited to 60 fps, has been increased, among other things, and there are also a number of error corrections and new localizations (Korean, Turkish, Czech). However, there is no new content, as Pope assures.

According to Pope, the engine change started as part of the ports to iOS and Android platforms last year and now PC gamers can also enjoy the changes.

In case you don’t remember (or don’t know yet) what the game is about, here is a brief description: “The communist state of Arstotzka has just ended a six-year war against its neighbor Kolechia and recaptured its rightful half of the border town of Grestin. Your job as an immigration inspector is to deal with the steady stream of immigrants arriving from Kolechia want to go to the Arstotzkan part of Grestin. Smugglers, spies and terrorists also hide among the crowds of immigrants and visitors looking for work. Only with the help of the papers presented to you by the travelers and with the help of the Ministry’s primitive facilities for border guards to inspect, search and fingerprint, you must decide who will be allowed into Arstotzka, who will be turned away and who will go to jail.”