Last Man Sitting Review (PC)

It went from harmless water cooler talk to corporate warfare in about four seconds flat. Frankly, I don’t think that there was ever time for a verbal warning; the bigwigs wanted war, and they wanted everyone to take part in their team-building exercise. I wanted to talk it out, but Last Man Sitting told me that talk was cheap, and that the only way to respond to a backlash was to strap myself to an office chair and bust some sickeningly pompous skateboarding tricks that would put even the likes of Rodney Mullen to shame. I didn’t “get” it, but like a dog with a bone, I chased the notion that peace talks, apparently, were a lot better suited to aggressive diplomacy. I never really knew what I was fighting for, but that never stopped me from pulling apart an IKEA office chair and tanking it out with bits and pieces of scrap and sticking a rifle to it.

Last Man Sitting was like witnessing a strike unfold in a corporate office, where employees were hell-bent on taking matters into their own hands. I suppose, to an extent, it was a bit like a disciplinary hearing, but rather than it being a professional and courteous talk between two people, it was a brash and disrespectful rebellion that led to one of said people taking things a little too far. As one of those people, I couldn’t help but lean into the revolt against the establishment. I couldn’t for the life of me understand why things were transpiring so dramatically, but after fifteen minutes, I honestly couldn’t care less. Twenty minutes in, I had an office chair, a weapon, and two-hundred synergies to experiment with. I might’ve lost my chance for a well-overdue promotion, but at that point, wreaking havoc was the next best thing to triple pay overtime.

Believe it or not, Last Man Sitting isn’t just a game about grinding on photocopiers or unleashing furious projectiles on mindless robotic colleagues. Well, it is, but it’s also a lot more than that. If anything, it’s a wild PvP free-for-all in which ruthless office workers blitz into the fray of volatile competition with chairs, sabers, and upwards of two-hundred abilities to fuel their rebellious rage. Think Fortnite meets Sunset Overdrive, and you should have a vague idea of what we’re talking about here. Perhaps that’s the best way to describe it. It’s an office-based PvP game that goes big on the bombastic violence and even bigger on the corporate feuds. It’s silly, nonsensical, and about as pointless as a stapler with a metal deficiency.

There’s a lot to wrap your head around here. Granted, there isn’t anything particularly “out of the ordinary” in terms of objectives or progression, given that the game is, in short, a condensed Battle Royale game that fortifies its four walls around a familiar office setting. No, there’s more to it in that it features a vast array of weapons, abilities, and sentient appliances. See, while the game does offer you the chance to duke it out with your own restless colleagues, the primary objective, really, is to wax poetic with a bullet hell—a world in which office supplies run rampant and waves of unlikely enemies foster seemingly supernatural powers. It’s a lot to take in, but stick with us.

The idea is simple: a player descends upon an office, equips their chair with various perks and abilities, and enters a chaotic room to hack, slash, and obliterate enemies in a wave-like fashion before obtaining more Power Ups, weapons, and upgrades to tackle tougher foes. It’s a simple setup that you no doubt would have seen dozens of times before. It just so happens that this world has a few extra explosions and eye-boggling visual effects. It isn’t a cinematic masterpiece; it’s just a lot to process, especially when you’re actively facing hundreds of flailing obstacles and drones all at the same time. But don’t let that put you off, because to be fair, it can be rather pleasant on the eyes. Sometimes.

While the overall gameplay is about as moronic as you could imagine it to be, Last Man Sitting does make for an annoyingly satisfying game with a ton of replay value. With thanks to its mutated enemy types and mounds of potential perks and chair-based upgrades, it has the capacity to keep you mindlessly distracted for a handful of hours of so. Of course, it isn’t the biggest game in the world, nor is it one that packs a hefty punch with all sorts of maps and game modes, for that matter. However, it reflects the price tag, which, in all fairness, is a heck of a lot cheaper than your bog-standard PvP battler. The question is, is it worth clocking in for?

Verdict

Last Man Sitting bathes in the moronic antics of a good old-fashioned PvP corridor romper in an effort to give you a good laugh at the expense of its stupidity and lack of content. Its biomes are certainly small, and it isn’t quite as polished as a big-budget Battle Royale chapter. Even still, for what you’re paying for, it definitely provides a clean and oddly charming experience that can keep you wheeling around for a number of hours. For that reason alone, I’d say that it makes for a worthy PvP game, even with the lack of meat on its bones.

It’s early doors yet, and so, there’s still a lot of time for Last Man Sitting to familiarize itself with its own boots and potentially open a few new portals for future updates and expansions. As for whether or not it has the capacity and flexibility to host a solid and, more importantly, evergreen online multiplayer shooter is another question, mind you. For what it’s worth, though, I’d say that it has all of the right assets in place. Really, it just needs the support of its fan base to help it break into the mainstream. Till then, we’ll just have to hold our breath and hope that it’ll exceed expectations in the coming weeks.