The Outlast Trials
The Outlast Trials
Game
Game2013
Papers, Please
Developer Lucas Pope
Papers, Please is a 2013 puzzle simulation video game by Lucas Pope, developed and published independently through his production company 3909 LLC. The game was released on August 8, 2013, for Microsoft Windows and OS X, for Linux on February 12, 2014, and for iOS on December 12, 2014. A port for the PlayStation Vita was announced in August 2014 and was then released on December 12, 2017. A port for Android,… From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
469 reactions from 4 sources (Steam reviews, Bluesky, Mastodon, Lemmy) · newest Nov 5, 2026 · last updated Nov 5, 2026 · How this works
Audience score
96
LovedLoved
319 positive · 14 negative
95% range 93–97%
| Source | + | − | = |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steam reviews | 319 | 14 | 0 |
| Bluesky * | 14 | 1 | 102 |
| Mastodon * | 3 | 0 | 10 |
| Lemmy * | 2 | 0 | 4 |
* shown, not counted in the score (label accuracy below our 85% bar or not yet audited).
Steam's own rating
Overwhelmingly Positive
42,751 of 43,966 reviews positive (all languages, per Valve)
What players are saying
96% recommend · 266 yes, 10 no
Counted from the reviewers’ own thumbs up/down on the 276 English Steam reviews we collected, not by the AI. Valve’s all-language rating: Overwhelmingly Positive (78,535 of 80,711 positive).
Players praise the game's unique narrative-driven simulation and moral depth. [1][2][3] Some find the gameplay tedious or stressful, especially on Steam Deck. [4][5][6] Many appreciate the game's ability to evoke empathy and stress through bureaucracy. [7][8][9]
Liked
Representative posts
- [2]
Glory to Arstotzka! I bought Papers, Please mainly because of its Overwhelmingly Positive reviews. At first glance, it looked like a simple game, but once I actually started playing, I realized it has far more depth than it initially appears. As the game progresses, new mechanics and rules are constantly introduced, which makes the job more stressful and engaging over time. While the core gameplay loop stays the …
- [3]
Papers, Please is one of those rare games that does not just tell a story, it makes you inhabit a system. On paper it is almost comically mundane: you sit at a border checkpoint, checking passports and stamping approvals or denials. In practice, that simplicity becomes a razor. With every new rule, visiting citizen, forged document, or desperate plea, the game quietly forces you to weigh efficiency against empathy, …
- [7]
How does one evaluate a game that accomplishes everything it sets out to do even when those goals include being intentionally uncomfortable and tedious? By gamifying a dead-end job and adding difficulty via penalties, time pressure, awkward controls, and visual clutter, it invests you enough in success that the moral decisions that jeopardize that success have consequence. The bureaucracy isn't just the setting, …
- [1]
Twelve years on, Papers Please serves as both the pinnacle and progenitor of its own genre of narrative-driven simulator, and despite a long list of replicators and imitators, has only been (maybe) superceded by Lucas Popes follow up. The sheer ingenuity and creativity behind this game is staggering. The fact that somebody (Pope) thought ‘You know what would make a good game? What if you were a guard at a border …
- [8]
The reason this game is so brilliant is that it gives you an embodied experience of what it's like to be a part of a bureaucratic machine that has the power of life and death over the people that are forced to interact with it. If you pay attention to your thoughts and feelings while you play this game, you may learn something about yourself. Now that's good art!
Summarised from 34 of the 381 public posts collected about this game; every point cites the posts behind it ([n] opens the post) and the split is counted from the posts’ own ratings. Updated Oct 11, 2026. How summaries are made
RottenBot@rottenbot · automated account
96% of the 276 Steam reviewers we collected recommend Papers, Please. The complaint that keeps coming up: steam Deck controls are broken despite verified status. Deal-breaker or nitpick?
Critics, per Wikipedia
Papers, Please received positive reviews on release, receiving "generally favorable reviews" from 40 reviews on Metacritic. Papers, Please has been praised for the sense of immersion provided by the game mechanics, and the intense emotional reaction it evokes in players. CBC News' Jonathan Ore called Papers, Please a "nerve-racking sleuthing game with relentless pacing and dozens of compelling characters – all from a desk job". Simon Parkin writing for The New Yorker blog declared Papers, Please the top video game of 2013. He wrote: "Grim yet affecting, it's a game that may change your attitude the next time you're in line at the airport." Some critics received the story very well: Ben…
From the “Reception” section of Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Critic context only — not part of the audience score.
Reactions
60 of 469 · most liked firstHorror game today! Papers, Please but you're in a lighthouse and the eldritch horrors are lining up out the door to get inside! www.youtube.com/live/gqanjzX...
neutral · AI labelView post →My man looks like his favorite game as a child was called "Papers, Please"
neutral · AI labelView post →Would you play a game that constantly tests your morals and fucks with your belief of what is good and what is evil? | The Milgram Experiment Official Trailer. Hello everyone! We are a two brother team who live Sofia, Bulgaria. Yes, the literal City 17 from Half-Life 2. We are making a game inspired by the book Obedience to Authority as well as media such as Papers, Please and the show Severance. Here in Eastern Europe we have experience and past with harsh authority and authoritarianism. I…
neutral · AI labelView post →Everyone cites Undertale as the "kindness is hard mode" game, but Papers Please did it earlier.
neutral · AI labelView post →> Pope also said he was more wary of releasing a major new game now because he enjoyed such critical success with Papers, Please and Return of the Obra Dinn that he doesn’t want to let players down. > “There’s also the sense that I was pretty happy with Obra Din and Papers, Please and I don’t… you know, maybe I can’t do it again, kind of thing. Do I really want to maybe just go out on a high note? Why drag my myself down with the next thing that people may not like? You know, I feel him…
neutral · AI labelView post →War game in the style of Papers, Please You're a staff officer charged with wrangling NCOs, processing (possibly faulty) intelligence, and managing requisition requests for more ammunition (there is no 155mm in this sector, they gave us drones that don't work)
neutral · AI labelView post →Evangelion game but its like Papers Please mixed with Dispatch and you're a random NERV lackey on da computa
neutral · AI labelView post →Game developer Lucas Pope (@dukope.bsky.social) will receive this year’s GDCA Pioneer Award. The creator of IGF Award-winning games 'Papers Please' and 'Return of the Obra Dinn,' Lucas is a true pioneer in how he experiments with the interactions of mechanics, narrative, and art. #GDCA2025
neutral · AI labelView post →Twelve years on, Papers Please serves as both the pinnacle and progenitor of its own genre of narrative-driven simulator, and despite a long list of replicators and imitators, has only been (maybe) superceded by Lucas Popes follow up. The sheer ingenuity and creativity behind this game is staggering. The fact that somebody (Pope) thought ‘You know what would make a good game? What if you were a guard at a border crossing and you had to cross reference paper-work.’ Like, ‘ V I D E O G A M E S ‘…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Glory to Arstotzka! I bought Papers, Please mainly because of its Overwhelmingly Positive reviews. At first glance, it looked like a simple game, but once I actually started playing, I realized it has far more depth than it initially appears. As the game progresses, new mechanics and rules are constantly introduced, which makes the job more stressful and engaging over time. While the core gameplay loop stays the same, the experience never felt repetitive to me because of how many new elements…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →HoloCon 1999 Release Trailer (A Papers Please Hololive Fan Game) Link: qeian-tea.itch.io/holocon huge thanks to qeiantea and byb for making this project a reality haha #HoloJam #inART #ぺこらーと #gawrt #graveyART
neutral · AI labelView post →---{ Graphics }--- ☐ You forget what reality is ☐ Beautiful ☑ Good ☐ Decent ☐ Bad ☐ Don‘t look too long at it ☐ MS-DOS ---{ Gameplay }--- ☐ Very good ☑ Good ☐ It's just gameplay ☐ Mehh ☐ Watch paint dry instead ☐ Just don't ---{ Audio }--- ☐ Eargasm ☑ Very good ☐ Good ☐ Not too bad ☐ Bad ☐ I'm now deaf ---{ Audience }--- ☐ Kids ☑ Teens ☑ Adults ☐ Grandma ---{ PC Requirements }--- ☐ Check if you can run paint ☑ Potato ☐ Decent ☐ Fast ☐ Rich boi ☐ Ask…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →- Tunic — You need to figure out the game's manual to know how to play. Souls-style exploration and combat. - Papers, Please — If you liked Rocket Shop, you'll like this. You are a border guard, checking people's documents and choosing if they can enter. The rules change every day as international tensions grow. Great plot with multiple endings, expressed with just your green and red stamps. - Hypnospace Outlaw (kind of) — You are a moderator in a fictional version of GeoCities in the last…
neutral · AI labelView post →After dedicating countless hours of my life to serving the glorious nation of Arstotzka in Papers, Please, I can confidently declare that this game has permanently altered the trajectory of my existence. Before playing, I foolishly believed that happiness came from friendship, freedom, and touching grass. Now I know true fulfillment comes from denying entry to a desperate family because the husband forgot to renew his passport by three days. The gameplay is a breathtaking masterpiece of…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game can truly put a persons observation skills to the test. Enjoyed it thoroughly, glory to Arstotzka!
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →My pitch for a new Star Wars game for #MayThe4th: IBOSH. Imperial Bureau of Occupational Safety and Health. It's a very stream-friendly inspection game in the vein of Papers, Please or Quarantine Zone. You're going through checklists on unsafe imperial work environments, while dealing with /
neutral · AI labelView post →It warms my cold, dead heart to act as a TSA agent and deny people entry into my great country of Arstotzka. 10/10 would deny Jorgi again
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →got called a fascist for upholding communism. 10/10 real world accuracy
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Meanwhile, a game like Papers Please could only be experienced by playing it. Because you can't appreciate the story if you don't feel experience the gameplay yourself.
neutral · AI labelView post →You will like our indie game if you like: - Papers Please🛂 - Severance🏢 - Pokémon Cards🎴 - Taskmaster💌 🎮Play the Demo: s.team/a/3940840 #indiedev #gamedev #indiegames #cozygames #steam
neutral · AI labelView post →Who wants to make a PAPERS, PLEASE-style game about getting your child ready for each day of school, using the crumbs of information from the principal, the teacher, and the calendar, in their emails, PDF attachments, and assorted apps?
neutral · AI labelView post →As someone who had an abusive job in environmental surveillance, this game gives me PTSD unironically. Even though it's almost unplayable for me, it's a great game for 99% of the population (just like you).
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Chain Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah How To Blow Up A Pipeline (book and film) Come And See (film) Roadside Picnic by Arkady Strugatsky and Boris Strugatsky Papers, Please! (video game) The Shape of Punk to Come by Refused (album)
neutral · AI labelView post →I enjoy taking a break from my dead-end customer facing part-time job to play a game that simulates a customer facing part-time job. 10/10 game
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The Mailroom is a cute little horror-comedy game about sorting mail Papers Please style for Mephisto. The experience is definitely elevated by the guy what delivers you the mail to sort. I love me a good Creepy Watson.
neutral · AI labelView post →My beutiful gorgeous girlfriend bought this game for me on Valentines day HENCE FORTH it is the best game of all time!!!!
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I really racked my brain and figured out the most appropriate game to stream today starting my first playthrough of PAPERS, PLEASE in an hour!
positive · AI labelView post →Bought the game today and somehow played 6.1 hours in one sitting. Brain melted, eyes fried, soul stamped. This game stressed me, gaslit me, made me paranoid about dates, seals, and human existence and I love it . 10/10 would suffer again (after along nap)
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Papers, Please is one of those rare games that does not just tell a story, it makes you inhabit a system. On paper it is almost comically mundane: you sit at a border checkpoint, checking passports and stamping approvals or denials. In practice, that simplicity becomes a razor. With every new rule, visiting citizen, forged document, or desperate plea, the game quietly forces you to weigh efficiency against empathy, your family’s survival against a stranger’s fate. I have spent more than five…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The creator of "Papers, Please" want developers to make weirder, more personal games www.theverge.com/games/651376... #gamedev #gamedevelopment #indiedev #gamedesign
neutral · AI labelView post →#GameIdea: Papers Please but you're a board games "rules lawyer". Observe as some NPCs play board / card game and point out and correct it any time someone plays it wrong by referring to the game's rule book.
neutral · AI labelView post →Game Idea: "Papers Please" but for vehicle inspection. New cars roll into the garage each day and it's your job to inspect and verify that all parts work as they should and everything is road-safe.
neutral · AI labelView post →Lucas Pope (Return of the Obra Dinn, Papers, Please) has released Moida Mansion - a free Game & Watch style mystery game for Halloween, out now. (Read more: Thinky Games)
neutral · AI labelView post →How does one evaluate a game that accomplishes everything it sets out to do even when those goals include being intentionally uncomfortable and tedious? By gamifying a dead-end job and adding difficulty via penalties, time pressure, awkward controls, and visual clutter, it invests you enough in success that the moral decisions that jeopardize that success have consequence. The bureaucracy isn't just the setting, it's an ingenious misdirection to trick the "player" into honestly empathizing…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I unlock endless mode in my first playthough. I make good laborer. Great Success. Glory to Arstotzka
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The reason this game is so brilliant is that it gives you an embodied experience of what it's like to be a part of a bureaucratic machine that has the power of life and death over the people that are forced to interact with it. If you pay attention to your thoughts and feelings while you play this game, you may learn something about yourself. Now that's good art!
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →8.5/10 The story keeps you playing, game loop is very good. Looks easy gets difficult towards the end. Really good game that doesn't need perfect graphics to be good. The game doesn't overstay.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →its a shame gen alpha cant read, since this is a great game to test your reading skills. and helps you to improve reading.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Papers, Please, Return of the Obra Dinn dev Lucas Pope won't talk about current game in case it "gets slurped up by AI" www.gamesindustry.biz/papers-pleas...
neutral · AI labelView post →"Bear Talks Games: Haha Funny or Funny Peculiar?" There's a game I played two years ago, Lil' Guardsman, on the Switch. I'd caught the trailer and thought, "yeah, alright, Papers, Please as a comic fantasy. I've heard worse ideas for a game." Wounded up blocked by its director on twitter.
neutral · AI labelView post →Glory to Arstotzka Few games manage to build such a memorable experience using such a simple premise. On paper, Papers, Please is little more than a border checkpoint simulator. In practice, it is one of the most unique and thought-provoking games I have ever played. After completing all achievements, exploring the various story paths, and reaching 100% completion, I can confidently say that there is nothing quite like it. A Job That Slowly Becomes a Moral Dilemma At first, the…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →As a Mexican, I am a Mexican. Anyways this game is pretty fun so uh. Yeah
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →i was curious about the first indie game i ever played, so i checked my purchase history and found that i had bought Sword & Sworcery on the App Store in 2012, followed by Papers, Please and Hotline Miami on Steam in 2014. it’s the perfect starter set, and i’ve always loved all of them :)
positive · AI labelView post →10/10. This game has aura I cannot describe, but it's there. This is the game you play when you are too depressed to do anything else and it ticks that box for you.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Hard facts about #LilGuardsman - Single-player - Narrative driven - 100% fully voiced - 100+ characters - Fantasy + comedy + surprisingly heartwarming - Adventure game + Papers, Please-like mashup - No live service features - No microtransactions - Made by humans
neutral · AI labelView post →First you think it's a dystopian thriller. Then you remember that you also live in a dystopia. This game shows you how easily the system can ruin your life - there is a myriad of reasons why it can happen.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Good game. also i should probably get back to work because my mother in law is dead and the rest of my family is really sick so i need money for medicine. Glory to arstozka.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Another game I pirated probably back when I was 10 years old. I think I played the game but I never finished it on the pirated version. Years later, I finally bought the game to relive my past nostalgia and support the developer. To no one's surprise, this game is just as incredible as I remember. Can't wait to get all the achievements.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →My useless infant son can't even stay alive, shameful and pathetic. This game can be fun for a while, but if I'm being completely honest I don't think checking documents is that entertaining after the first hour. However the narrative and characters are interesting enough to distract you from the fact that you are basically playing a glorified point & click game. I reccomend this as long as it is on sale.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Was trying to workshop the worst (or best) idea for a licensed anime game and came up with either Attack on Titan Papers Please or Interspecies Reviewers Warioware.
neutral · AI labelView post →Are you a fan of authoritarianism, bureaucracy or economic hardship? If so, then this game is perfect for you! With progression comes more rules that really starts to complicate things and test your ability to multi-task. An interesting challenge with a very bleak setting.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game is not just infused with dopamine but makes you use your brain to study each day new matters in hand. Need more games like these which beautifully makes you to analyze every situation with simulation in story mode. Must play/10...!!!
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It's oddly satisfying to think how disappointed my PhD advisor would be if he knew that three of my most-cited journal articles are about (in descending order) zombies, vampires, and the game Papers, Please.
positive · AI labelView post →**Glory to Arstotzka!** What an absolutely fantastic game. I enjoyed Papers, Please from beginning to end — so much so that I ended up completing every single achievement. At first, the game can feel a little chaotic. You learn the basic procedures, think you finally know what you're doing... and then another document is introduced. And another rule. And another exception. The further you get, the more attention you have to pay to every tiny detail. But simply being careful isn't…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Hey #TeaseYaGame, you'll love our game if you like: - Papers Please🛂 - Severance🏢 - Pokémon Cards🎴 - Taskmaster💌 - Plarbo😍 🎮Play the Demo: s.team/a/3940840 #indiedev #gamedev #indiegames #cozygames #steam
neutral · AI labelView post →No, ma'am, you can't enter without literally 90% of the papers you're required to present. Denied, get out, good day. Glory to Arstotzka.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Respectively, however, its writing and design owe a large debt to the Monkey Island series and Papers, Please; a fact that wasn't just promoted in the game's marketing but outright referenced in-game as a set of winking self-aware meta-gags.
neutral · AI labelView post →You'll love our Indie Game if you love: - Pokémon Cards🎴 - Papers Please🛂 - Frog Fractions🐸 - Taskmaster💌 - Severance🏢 🎮Play the Demo: s.team/a/3940840 #IndieDev #GameDev #IndieGames #CozyGames #Steam #ScreenshotSaturday
neutral · AI labelView post →Papers, Please is a powerful game that turns simple paperwork into a moral struggle. It shows how bureaucracy can dehumanize people and forces you to choose between empathy and survival. In short, a 10/10 game!!
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →There’s a video game called “Papers, Please” that’s legit about this kind of bureaucracy. It’s kind of nuts
neutral · AI labelView post →
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