As someone who never played an Infamous game before Infamous: Second Son on PS4, but who had heard that the DLC to Infamous 2 was well received, I decided to pick up the storyline centric Infamous: First Light. Second Son was an extremely enjoyable game with great replayability and after playing through the entirety of the DLC story missions, it’s pleasing that developer Sucker Punch appear to have continued the trend in making exciting and beautiful games.
Infamous: First Light takes place in the same setting as the main game, that being Seattle. However, it is important to note that only half of Seattle is available in this DLC. This is perhaps understandable. After all, to include the entirety of the open world in what is also available as a standalone game would not only drastically increase the download size, but would also possibly take away from sales of Second Son. This is not to say the DLC is short, far from it. The storyline missions take from 3-4 hours to complete which, when considered alongside the other optional tasks and collectibles available in the open-world, is actually a fairly substantial chunk of DLC, for a relatively good price of £11.99. As in Second Son, Seattle is amazingly detailed and looks very realistic, suitably next-gen. Set 2 years before the events of the main game, DUP outposts are not present in the open world, but the presence of the DUP does increase significantly over the course of the game.
This DLC features as its main protagonist Fetch Walker, one of the characters seen in the main game. In many ways, Fetch seemed like a more interesting and likeable character than Second Son’s protagonist Delsin Rowe, and so it is fitting that the story of the character is fleshed out significantly here. We first meet Fetch in a dock, where she is planning on escaping Seattle to Canada with her brother Brent. However, the boat is blown up by a gang known as the Akurans, who also kidnap Brent in the process. Most of the game follows Fetch trying to track down and rescue her brother, with a number of other interesting characters introduced along the way. The story is framed nicely by occasional visits to the present, where Fetch is being held captive by the villain of Second Son, Brooke Augustine. These visits usually entail being introduced to new powers in the context of the battle arenas which are a new addition in this DLC. Unlike with Delsin in Second Son, there is no good or evil karma system at work here. Instead, we follow Fetch as she progresses to become a ruthless killer by the ending of the DLC. Whilst a similar system would have been nice, this would not really have made sense, given the character’s introduction in the main game.
The battle arenas found in the DLC drastically increase the replayability of the game and are extremely fun to play through. These are effectively horde mode arenas where you fight against DUP officers and villains from the main game, with a survival mode where the objective is to last as long as you can without dying, and a rescue mode where the objective is to rescue hostages whilst killing enemies. Not only do these arenas earn you points which can be used to upgrade your skill set, but global leaderboards are also present which add another layer of competitiveness to the challenges. The arenas become progressively more frantic as time goes on and are almost as fun to play as the story missions. Furthermore, if you happen to also own the main game, Infamous: Second Son, you can play through the arenas with that game’s protagonist Delsin Rowe, which enables you to use his extended set of powers in the arenas.
As a well priced piece of DLC for one of the games of the year thus far, Infamous: First Light is both very fun and replayable. If you own a PS4, playing the DLC for one of the console’s current best games is too good an opportunity to miss.
Infamous: First Light is available to buy at retail or as a digital download. The game is exclusive to PS4.
