“You play as an individual behind a security apparatus of some sort, capable of interfacing with the cameras and systems of a cloistered, dystopian boarding school. République doesn’t establish or question who you are. You could be a valiant hacker fighting for freedom or just a surveillance officer with a conscience. Either way, the game begins when a teenage girl named Hope, one of the République’s captives, turns to the camera in the corner of a room—to you—and asks for help. You become both guide and watcher, assisting Hope from afar but also observing her and her world. You get to learn about it from a position of absolute safety and absolute power. République makes our voyeurism inescapable, explicitly tying your only means of absorbing and interacting with the game’s world to the surveillance state it critiques.”