One of the most lamented losses in the world of lost media was Obsidian’s incredibly innovative spy thriller roleplaying game Alpha Protocol. For the longest time, the game was simply unavailable for purchase on any platform, with Alpha Protocol being taken down from Steam in 2019 for licensing issues for several of the music tracks, most notably “Turn Up the Radio” by Autograph. Thankfully, however, it seems that Good Old Games have worked through these licensing issues, as Alpha Protocol is now available on GOG, and you can purchase it at this link.
Alpha Protocol is a really unique take on the roleplaying game genre, from its setting to its tone to its general mission statement. Taking the role of Michael Thorton, a secret agent, it’s your job to infiltrate and work your way through various factions and governments, explaining away often hypocritical dialogue options RPG players choose as just another layer in Michael’s two-faced cover to both unravel and keep himself hidden from various conspiracies.
The gameplay has always been one of Alpha Protocol’s weakest points, while definitely serviceable it is very much unpolished and mostly a vehicle to take you from one national mystery to the other, and it does a very good job of doing that even if it can struggle from time to time.
One can never fault Obsidian, especially in this era, of not attempting to innovate, however, and the dialogue tree for the game is absolutely massive and maddening to look at. With a single section of dialogue accounting for months of work on the developer’s side.
As mentioned, it’s been 5 years since the game was publicly available, and while GOG has seemingly fixed Alpha Protocol’s licensing troubles there’s always a chance that they rear their ugly heads again, so we would highly recommend purchasing this game as soon as possible if you are at all interested, which you should be, it truly is a one of a kind video game and nothing before or since has done anything quite like Alpha Protocol has.