Though the portfolio is rather diverse, the games of Klei Entertainment all share one common trait: difficulty. From the brain-teasers of the Eets series to the rough survival elements of Don't Starve to the precise stealth of Mark of the Ninja, this is a company that prides itself on delivering experiences that push challenge above all else. The PC version of Invisible, Inc., was no different, and while there were some concessions made when it transitioned to the PS4, the result is still simultaneously fun and tough.

It's the 21st century, and corporations rule the world. To combat their power, a shadow organization has formed to strike with guerrilla-like tactics. Instead of using brute force, the organization and its agents infiltrate their compounds, steal what is needed, and escape without a trace. Unfortunately, its headquarters have been compromised. Most of the agents have either been killed or captured, while the leader was able to escape with the AI super program used for those missions. That program is running on backup power, and without a more reliable source of energy, it will terminate in 72 hours. As the operator of two remaining agents, it is your job to do everything to rebuild and strengthen the organization before the corporations win.

If you're looking for a story, you're not going to find much of one. Beyond the introduction, the tale is barely referred to as you progress. Aside from Central, the head of the organization, the rest of the characters are mute ciphers, interchangeable enough to not make a difference in the overall tale. By the time you reach the end, you finally come back to a story, but you'll barely notice. While the tale may not be impressive, the gameplay is another story.

If you wanted a shorthand way to describe the gameplay, think of it as a modified version of XCOM, only with corporate guards as your adversaries instead of interstellar beings. After selecting your agents and equipment, you're sent into a turn-based strategy game where you send agents into position while executing actions along the way. Your turn ends so the enemy can make its moves, and you repeat the process. Stealth is the focus of the game, but you start off with hardly any lethal tools. Every time you ambush or deliver a knockout blow, you have to endure a cool-down period before those moves can be used again. You can also call upon your AI to disable cameras and open locked gates while searching through the bodies of unconscious guards for more traditional key card locks. Once you complete your objective, you can find the exit and get out to complete the mission.

There's a nice variety of objectives to each of the missions. Some ask you to retrieve an item to progress. Others task you with bolstering your financial reserves by pilfering those of the corporations. A few missions ask you to get power-ups for your agents or rare equipment from the black market. There are even a few missions where you're tasked with rescuing captured agents to increase your roster. The availability of each mission changes as you pick which ones you'll tackle, and since the missions eat up several of those precious 72 hours, you'll want to carefully choose what you'll tackle so you're prepared for the end-game scenario.

While the main objectives can vary per mission, the secondary objective always seems to be the acquisition of extra cash. To help with this, there are loads of safes in each stage and guards who can be searched when knocked out. The more useful tools are rather expensive, so it's tempting to explore every inch of a level and loot as much cash as possible. However, the game tries to curb that with an alert meter. At the end of your turn, the meter goes up incrementally, and five filled sections make the meter go up by one level. The consequences of doing so start off small with the introduction of an extra guard, but they soon escalate with more heavily armored enemies, cameras, and even digital countermeasures for your AI's actions. The result is a sort of risk/reward section where you can score the most loot if you're willing to deal with tougher obstacles and enemies.

Of course, failure is pretty high in these sorts of games, as things can go sideways due to carelessness, and while the idea of permadeath is still here, you can either heal fallen agents on the field or drag their bodies to the exit if they're merely unconscious. Any agent still alive but left behind gets captured, and that adds a rescue mission to your list. While the higher difficulty levels afford you no way to correct your mistakes, playing on lower ones will give you a set number of rewinds, so you can try a different move if what you originally wanted didn't work. Despite what the game states, though, you actually move back two turns instead of one, so keep that in mind.

Your difficulty level also determines whether you have the ability to retry a failed stage, and this is where Invisible, Inc., adopts some roguelike traits. Choosing to retry that level completely disposes of your previous map layout in favor of a new randomly generated one. Furthermore, new campaigns randomize everything from the available missions to the tools you'll initially have and the agents you start with. The same goes for the Contingency Plan DLC, which is already included in this version of the game but must be manually activated before it can be accessed. With the campaigns being pretty short, the randomization gives the game longevity while also making the title more challenging since you can't simply memorize the maps.

One complaint that can be levied at the game concerns its transition from PC to console. For the most part, the controls are fine, but the analog sticks of the PS4 are loose enough that you don't have as much precision when compared to a mouse. The turn-based nature of the game makes this a minor complaint, but it should be noted. Something that isn't as minor is the lack of interface scaling. Similar to how it was difficult to read the text in Dead Rising for those who still owned SDTVs, the text here is still better suited for a monitor, which is expected to be a short distance from a player's face. Unless you're doing the same thing here or have a large television, it can be difficult to read the text and iconography if your couch is a normal distance from your set.

As a whole, Klei's games have been great in the graphics department, and this is no different. The art style is similar to that of Mark of the Ninja but more stylized and toned down due to lanky characters and the blending of colors. The animations are top-notch, as each action — from hiding to takedowns and even death — is done fluidly. Admittedly, the levels can look rather busy with floating elements on the outskirts of each map, but the alternate view that you can activate does a good job of cleaning up the visual noise to provide a clearer picture of the level's layout. Speaking of which, the levels look nice for a futuristic interior style, but when you consider how the game asks you to travel all over the world to succeed, seeing the same styles in each stage robs the game of some real chance at variety.

The team has also done a good job on the audio side. The music has a futuristic tint to it, but it remains perfect for stealth because of its brooding nature. Low-key but not invisible, it is fitting whether things are fine or on the verge of failure. Despite your own agents being pretty much mute, the game is still filled with voices from everyone else, including the guards and black market vendors. Like the environments, though, the guards all sound the same no matter which location you visit, and it doesn't take long before they start to repeat lines.

Invisible, Inc.: Console Edition is tough. Porting quirks aside, the missions can be quite difficult if you're careless in your strategy, and the randomization means that using brute force to make your way through the title isn't feasible even at the lowest difficulty level. That difficulty is also what makes the game fun, and a more defensive approach to turn-based strategy makes things interesting. The title has a very solid presentation and promises longevity due to randomization, so strategy fans will undoubtedly enjoy Invisible Inc.

Score: 8.0/10