40 Fun Facts About We Happy Few

The title We Happy Few comes from the St Crispin's Day speech in which Shakespeare play?

Henry V delivers the speech to rally his outnumbered men before a fight. Laurence Olivier's 1944 film of the play used it to lift spirits during the Second World War.

In We Happy Few, the candy-filled piñata at Arthur Hastings's office party turns out to be what?

A rat is what the Joy-addled staff are really eating, and seeing it marks Arthur out as a Downer. Two constables chase him from the building.

The Very Bad Thing in We Happy Few saw the people of Wellington Wells hand over whom to the Germans?

Their children, everyone under 13, were handed over in exchange for the town's freedom. The guilt that followed is the reason Joy was invented.

The German tanks that cowed Wellington Wells in We Happy Few were secretly made of what?

Papier-mâché dummies were all the Germans had, so the town could have resisted and gave in out of fear. General Byng knew the truth and kept quiet to prevent a rebellion.

Which country's ratings board refused to classify We Happy Few in May 2018 because of its Joy pills?

Australia ruled that Joy made progress easier and so rewarded drug use. A review overturned the ban that July and passed the game with an R18+ rating.

What happens if Arthur Hastings swallows his Joy pill in the very first scene of We Happy Few?

The game ends there and then, because an Arthur who takes his Joy never questions anything. Refusing the pill is what sets the whole story in motion.

The forced-smile masks in We Happy Few were conceived as a reversal of the masks worn in which dystopian story?

V for Vendetta made the mask a sign of resistance, so the game reversed it. In Wellington Wells the mask stands for oppression, forcing its wearer to smile all day.

In We Happy Few's Lightbearer story, rock star Nick Lightbearer fights off crazed fans with what?

An electric guitar is his only weapon: Nick plays music to send attackers packing. Strumming in front of his own gilded statues also points the way, since he has no map.

Arthur Hastings stops taking his Joy in We Happy Few because he wants to remember which older brother?

Percy appears beside Arthur in an old news clipping that lands on his desk. Finding him becomes Arthur's reason to escape Wellington Wells.

What are the outcasts called who grew immune to Joy and were driven out of town in We Happy Few?

Wastrels lost the protection of Joy, partly through bad batches of the drug, and were left depressed or insane by what they remembered.

What job does Arthur Hastings do at the Department of Archives, Printing and Recycling in We Happy Few?

Newspaper censor is his official role: he approves or redacts old articles so that unpleasant memories stay buried. One clipping finally stirs his own.

How does Ollie Starkey finally leave Wellington Wells at the end of his chapter in We Happy Few?

By hot-air balloon, which the former soldier builds himself. Sally Boyle leaves by boat and Arthur Hastings by the railway bridge.

What is the surname of Uncle Jack, the cheery television propagandist of We Happy Few?

Worthing is a name he shares with Jack, the double-living hero of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, whose young ward also calls him Uncle Jack.

We Happy Few's Uncle Jack has been called a mix of broadcaster Lewis Prothero and which Batman villain?

The Joker in question is Jack Nicholson's. The game's hero Arthur was likewise seen as part Winston Smith from Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Which girl appears to Ollie Starkey as a talking hallucination throughout his We Happy Few chapter?

Margaret turns out to be Uncle Jack's daughter, not Ollie's. Ollie was the neighbour who informed on the family when Jack tried to hide her.

Which console got We Happy Few first, as an unfinished early access release in July 2016?

Xbox One players could buy the unfinished game two years before launch. The studio wanted far more feedback than its 2,000 alpha testers had been able to give.

Which crowdfunding site hosted the June 2015 campaign that helped fund We Happy Few?

Kickstarter backers who pledged enough got into the alpha test. The studio found that gave too little feedback, so it opened the unfinished game to early access a year later.

Early trailers led players to expect We Happy Few to be a story-led game like which big-budget hit?

BioShock comparisons followed the game for years, and its director said he was flattered but that it was never a prime influence. The studio was aiming for a small survival game.

Which company announced at E3 2018 that it had bought We Happy Few developer Compulsion Games?

Microsoft revealed the deal on stage two months before the game came out, alongside its purchases of Ninja Theory, Playground Games and Undead Labs.

Which company's funding let We Happy Few expand from a short survival game into a full retail-length release?

Gearbox Software money let the team grow four-fold and add a PlayStation 4 version, but the bigger game also doubled in price from $30 to $60.

Which dystopian film did director Guillaume Provost name as a primary influence on We Happy Few?

Brazil also shaped the hero, since Arthur Hastings was seen as part Sam Lowry. The studio later cited the film when defending its Joy pills to a ratings board.

In the final twist of Arthur Hastings's story in We Happy Few, what did he once swap with his brother?

Their identity cards decided who boarded the train to Germany, so the swap sent his brother in his place. Arthur buried the memory until he reached the bridge out of town.

Sally Boyle's secret baby falls ill with which disease in We Happy Few, sending her to Arthur for help?

Measles strikes Gwen, the first baby born in Wellington Wells in a long time. Sally keeps her a secret, so she turns to her childhood friend for help.

Which old-fashioned remedy does Sally Boyle ask Arthur Hastings to fetch for her in We Happy Few?

Cod liver oil is the price of a favour: in return Arthur gets a Letter of Transit from General Byng, Sally's most prominent patron.

Which Haworth Labs director in We Happy Few is developing a permanent Joy that would lobotomise the town?

Anton Verloc is also the man who threw Sally Boyle out of the lab, and the father of her baby. He is prepared to let the population die back to a level he calls sustainable.

Arthur Hastings is chased out of his office as a Downer and ends up in which part of We Happy Few's town?

Garden District is home to the town's outcasts, and the only area where wearing a torn suit will not get a player hunted down by the residents.

In the We Happy Few story We All Fall Down, which weapon lets Victoria Byng both fight and climb?

A whip lets her strike enemies and swing up to higher levels out of danger. She also carries a dart gun for silent takedowns and for disabling security.

In the We Happy Few story They Came From Below, what hostile enemies fill the facility under Dr. Faraday's lab?

Robots patrol the hidden facility and speak in Dr. Faraday's own voice. She has been reprogramming them as slave labour because the town is running out of food.

In The Night Watch arcade mode of We Happy Few, the player patrols as which kind of character?

A Bobby named John Constable is the hero, known as Constable Constable for short. He must keep buying Joy between fights, because the mode ends the moment he runs out.

Which flavour of Joy in We Happy Few is a rarer version supplied to the town's police rather than the public?

Blackberry is Sally Boyle's own recipe, and the constables lean on her to keep them supplied. That pressure sends her scavenging the town for fresh ingredients.

In We Happy Few, which populist senator becomes US President after Franklin D. Roosevelt is assassinated?

Huey Long takes the White House, and it is implied that America then stays out of the war. In real life the Louisiana senator was himself assassinated in 1935.

Director Guillaume Provost likened We Happy Few's concept to which survival game, only set in a 3D dystopia?

Don't Starve was his comparison for the early design, with permadeath and a randomly built town to relearn each time. Players wanted story instead, so permadeath became optional.

We Happy Few director Guillaume Provost once worked at which developer of a secret Half-Life episode?

Arkane Studios was quietly building an episode for the Half-Life series, set in another dystopia, while Provost and some of his later colleagues worked there.

Which personal loss, weeks before his studio's first game shipped, led Guillaume Provost to imagine We Happy Few?

His father's death left him reflecting on his own life, and out of that distress came the idea of a society fixated on drugs and masks.

In We Happy Few's free virtual reality spin-off Uncle Jack Live VR, the player works as what on Jack's broadcast?

Producer is the job, picking which news stories Jack reads on air. Defy his cheerful line often enough and he calls the whole programme off.

What does Ollie Starkey do with Uncle Jack's unreleased final recording in We Happy Few?

Ollie airs it to the town from Jack's own abandoned studio. Watching their cheerful host break down in despair shocks the population awake.

Uncle Jack's broadcasting studio in We Happy Few sits above which building in Wellington Wells?

City Hall holds the studio, but when Ollie Starkey breaks in he finds it deserted. Jack has vanished, leaving only a tape of a show that never went out.

In We Happy Few's We All Fall Down, Victoria Byng's mother was jailed in which country for backing its independence?

India is also where the story points her next: a vision urges Victoria to go back and look for her mother, who may still be alive.

Compulsion Games, the studio behind We Happy Few, was founded in 2009 in which Canadian city?

Montreal is home to the team, yet the game is steeped in 1960s England because many of its developers were fascinated by British television and film.

Which puzzle platformer was Compulsion Games' only release before We Happy Few?

Contrast was built by a team of five, and that shortage of hands is why the studio turned to randomly generated towns for its next game.