The Westport Independent gets a new trailer and free alpha preview

Westport

When introducing a game about press censorship, there's always a temptation to do something meta. Something like, hypothetically, hiding a shocking tell-all exposé as a comment tag in this page's HTML.

If any editors are reading, I definitely didn't do that.

The Westport Independent, then. It's the 1940s, there's a dictatorial government in power, and you're the editor of a newspaper. Do you print the government version of events, or try to get the truth out to the people? It's a similar concept to Lucas Pope's The Republia Times, and was itself originally a Ludum Dare game. There's now a new trailer for the upcoming full version, and a free alpha preview that you can download and try.

As for the features being implemented for this full-fat version of the game, you can find them below. And hey, in keeping with it's theme, I'll even let you edit them yourself:

"The new version of The Westport Independent will contain many more features than the original. One of the biggest additions will be a number of management systems that will add a completely new dimension when selecting what material to print.

"The city of Westport itself will also be more dynamic and will change according to your actions. What you print will affect the people, which will affect what happens in Westport, which in turn will affect the articles you work with."

For more on The Westport Independent check out Sam's preview, or head to the game's website.

Phil Savage
Editor-in-Chief

Phil has been writing for PC Gamer for nearly a decade, starting out as a freelance writer covering everything from free games to MMOs. He eventually joined full-time as a news writer, before moving to the magazine to review immersive sims, RPGs and Hitman games. Now he leads PC Gamer's UK team, but still sometimes finds the time to write about his ongoing obsessions with Destiny 2, GTA Online and Apex Legends. When he's not levelling up battle passes, he's checking out the latest tactics game or dipping back into Guild Wars 2. He's largely responsible for the whole Tub Geralt thing, but still isn't sorry.