Neurocracy 2.049 review - a brilliant futurist mystery of truth and technology

"Wikipedia isn't a reliable source" is one of those things that was drummed into me repeatedly at school. "Anyone can write anything there." Of course, when I first poked at this idea it felt a little heavy handed: nearly everything is cited, sources are monitored for reliability, and it's rare for outright sabotage to last longer than a few minutes. There's another layer underneath that though, and sometimes it takes diving into a page's edit history to find the trails of bias and misinformation that are hidden by Wikipedia's neutral voice. This is, in part, what underpins Neurocracy, the murder mystery you solve by trawling through Omnipedia, the corporate-sponsored Wikipedia of the future.

In the year 2049, Xu Shaoyong, tech trillionaire and owner of a global information network, is assassinated. His death is the springboard to delve deeper into Neurocracy's world - the web of surveillance including montages of information collected directly from neural implants, the decade aftermath of a foodborne pandemic, and the shift of geopolitical strength between politicians and corporations.

The game is primarily browser-based, as you sleuth your way through a fake wikipedia. Each episode revolves around one new day in Neurocracy's world, and its evolving mystery reflected in new Omnipedia pages, and the changelogs of old ones. There's no moment or interface to tick off that it was Mrs Brown in the library with the pipe - just your own theories and conclusions. New to 2.049 - which is the second live ten-episode drop - is an optional app, which lets you pin sections of Omnipedia to a conspiracy board. Neither playing live or using the board are necessary to experience Neurocracy though, as you can work your way through the now-released episodes at your own pace.

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