It’s a journey to achieve your dreams. After being teased during the PlayStation State of Play in 2021, the team at Team OFK are proud to announce a release date for their ambitious story-driven title, We Are OFK. On August 18th, players across Nintendo Switch, PlayStation, and Xbox can embark on their journey to be the next big thing in music. It’s a tale of love, passion, heartbreak, and the choices made along the way at a time when the world is a broken and endless puzzle.
We Are OFK is a five-part episodic game, with chapters being released on a weekly basis. Each member of the main cast, going and growing through the motions of their lives, has a dream and a passion they want to pursue. Some have the capacity and ability to achieve it. They are burdened by the past and work to emotionally remove parts of themselves to move on.
The trailer shows a story of four friends making music, dating, loving, and going through the rough times, all the while dreaming of what their lives could hold, and having to pay rent in Los Angeles, which is a feat in and of itself. The trailer is certainly plugged into the internet generation of today. An array of glowing visuals and synth landscapes are constant, from the glow of an arcade bar, the illumination of a concert to the softness of a glowing night on a bridge with your significant other. Music is the main part of We Are OFK as the band, OFK, penned and built the game. We Are OFK shows decisions that can be made, appearing as small messenger bubbles, and smaller mini-games involving skateboarding on a synthwave road.
Complimenting this trailer is the announcement of a physical edition, now available for pre-order on iam8bit. We Are OFK will have a physical Collector’s Edition on both PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch, with the PS5 version costing $29.99 and the Nintendo Switch version costing $34.99. The Edition comes with a papercraft of We Are OFK’s cat mascot, Debug. Additionally, the physical edition comes with a physical copy of the game, and most importantly, all 5 episodes will be available on the disc. There is also a We Are OFK vinyl for purchase, separate from the Collector’s Edition.
We Are OFK looks to be an indie stand out for 2022. It’s not everyday you here of a real life band taking to the world of gaming with their own fully-built game experience, as opposed to an app on the smartphone that either lasts for 5 minutes or is filled with gacha mechanics. We Are OFK certainly hones in on those further weaving themselves into the internet age, where entire imaginations and experiences take place, and where the emotions of the real world have tremendous impact through the digital world. This kind of storytelling has been a growing theme in media, mixed with the nostalgia of the 70s, 80s, and 90s.
During COVID-19 lockdowns, I greatly grew fond of the “synthwave” scene in particular, from The Midnight to Gunship to TimeCop1983. There was something invigorating, inspirational, soothing, as if the music synchronized to what I was feeling and the ambitions I have. What is now and what could be. We are OFK is striking that chord, from the music to the visuals. I respect this pursuit that OFK is wrapping up with We Are OFK, and actually hope that the game helps to inspire other bands and groups to consider pursuing their own gaming experiences. I can easily imagine The Midnight pursuing something akin to Sega’s Outrun with “Change Your Heart or Die” being a centerpiece song to the experience. In fact, Dan Terminus put multiple tunes from his album The Wrath of Code in Flying Oak’s twin-stick shooter Neurovoider in 2017, so anything is possible!
We Are OFK will be available on PlayStation 4 and 5, Steam, and Nintendo Switch.
