D-topia review

When sitting down with D-topia for the first time, you’re dropped into a world of bright white colors and endless possibilities. I enjoyed my time with D-topia during the demo at Summer Game Fest, in which I awarded it one of our "Best of Summer Game Fest" awards for 2026!

You are The Facilitator; a job that’s clearly rare as almost every character will tell you to your face. Your job in D-Topia is to help the citizens. That call to action though, is a bit… nondescript. A cozy-puzzle game disguising itself so you don’t think about the sinister implications is anything but cozy. The world is full of mystery as you continue to learn information about the other “topias” and find yourself at the center of one of the greatest mysteries in the universe.

Off the bat, I am obsessed with the soundscape of this game. When in the front end, everything is bright and glowing with possibilities. Calming music as you walk through a vibrant cityscape talking about everything from food to the calmness of D-topia with your neighbors. The Garden is an area you really see this in, as it’s one of the most calm areas I’ve run around in within a video game. Meanwhile, as soon as you switch the visual system, it all comes to a screeching halt. This mode is only available to The Facilitator and allows him to fix things such as bugs (the virtual kind), see things such as mice, and help citizens as he sees fit. The jarring difference between the front and back end is simply astounding to experience. An automatic shock to the system as a relaxing utopia is quickly seen in its barren state. The back end provides a droning hum that only gets louder the deeper into the facility you go. 

The contrast of the stark whites and deep blues with the emergency reds is everything you need for a deeply uncomfortable juxtaposition to experience. While in the main view mode for D-topia, everything is futuristic pure white and grey with color coming from the clothing and foliage provided. The deep blues and blacks they change to when you switch the visual mode give off a creepy if not industrious feel. Finally, emergency red: something you never want to see but deal with on occasion. These all provide their own flavor to D-topia that build the world.

Everyday you do the same thing. You wake up, get dressed and ready, go to work, and then spend the afternoon exploring and helping citizens. Let’s take these a step at a time. D-topia provides three meals a day delivered to your house (by whom and when, who’s to say) as well as dry-cleaning overnight for your suit. Housekeeping and all management is done by Troids (droids) who are ordered by the AI who controls the topias (yes, there are all the letters of the alphabet). Once you’re up, stuffed, and face washed, you can head to work where you’ll do puzzles until the bell rings. Once it rings, you can leave or stick around for more puzzles to make more money.

Money can be used for objects for your home and buying food while out. After work, your time is yours. You can go to the Central Hall which features the store, salon, and general meeting. You can visit the Garden which has nicer food and plenty of folks to talk to sprinkled throughout. You then have the Stockyard which holds the workspace as well as the Alpha Troid. These areas are clearly marked and mostly free of obstruction.

These puzzles are the main form of gameplay as you’ll do them for work, data clearing, debugging, and more. You have multiple types to play through from getting the right numbers into boxes, connecting the right boxes to the right areas, destroying bugs, etc. I found these to be pretty easy for the most part. I had three to four that gave me a hard time, but I’d say some of that had to do with the speed in which I played through the first playthrough. I simply couldn’t put this game down. There are a few times the puzzles are timed, but for the most part, you’re free to take things as you need to personally.

One of my favorite side quests was playing against the four horsemen of puzzles, mice that give you puzzles that are on the harder side. Once defeated, you end up fighting a puzzle-boss which was a ton of fun. 

Eebie, Amane, Sona, Poppy, Mari, Tot, and Heine are your main crew of characters you’ll interact with for the narrative. (You also have a cat you can adopt if you choose to go through those choices) I have purposefully left out three names as they’re major spoilers and I wouldn’t do that to you. These characters all have story lines to follow and assist in one way or another.

This is where your choices in your Brain Meeting come into play. Using all of your gathered information, you use your brain to make big game decisions. This isn’t for the faint of heart. Your definition of what “helping citizens” means will dictate your responses and decision making. Someone shouldn’t be in D-topia? You can either have them taken away or try and find a way to help them fix their issues. However, that may or may not get you in trouble with your job as The Facilitator. You REALLY don’t want to end up being shipped to Z-topia… Be very careful what you choose to do as this will fully shift how your playthrough will go. 

I loved all of the ways people communicate. Through text messages, meeting you in different areas for chats, and finding characters in their "normal spots." D-topia feels like everything was thought through to make the world feel as lived-in as it can while also providing a future that's human-choice-less.

You can beat this game in 10-12 hours and feel really good about it. You’re also able to easily replay the ending bit which is very very nice given the ending’s structure. I was pleased with my ending but immediately jumped back in to see how things would be impacted by making other decisions. For being such a cozy-looking game, this entire setup can become extremely sinister and real quickly and without warning. Some of the character backstories are some of the saddest stories I’ve heard in my gaming experience. 

I absolutely enjoyed my time with D-topia. While I would have personally loved some harder puzzles, the puzzles weren’t the focus. The focus was the definition of what a Utopia truly can be. Is it having a simple life free of responsibility? Is it spending time with your sister no matter the cost? What does being happy mean at the dawn of a new age for humanity? All these can come into play on your journey through D-topia.