disapproved of. Werner stated that, at its worst, The Nomad Soul was "your typical puzzle hunt with non-player characters that can often be annoying". He thought the models were "blocky" and their textures "murky" or "blurry". Donald noted that Quantic Dream's incorporation of various styles was a failure and became disillusioned with the promise of an immersive world, judging it instead as "little more than a polygonal prop". The action sequences were criticised for their repetitiveness. Kasavin took the same view as Donald on the implementation of multiple gameplay styles, calling them "ineffective". He questioned the originality of the world, considered the character animations "stilted and unrealistic", dismissed the unarmed combat as "silly" compared to other fighting games, and diverged from others on the soundtrack, saying it lacked variety. Dunham wrote that The Nomad Soul was best described as "Messiah and Shenmues illegitimate child", disregarding the Dreamcast version as an "obviously rushed" port. Though initially impressed with the reincarnation mechanic, he grew tired of it near the end. Lopez mentioned the frame rate as one "serious problem" he encountered, especially in first-person mode. Vederman stated that the first-person and side-on segments looked and played "rather poorly". Sequel By January 2000, a sequel was in the early stages of development, then scheduled to be released by 2001. It went under the titles Nomad Soul: Exodus and Omikron 2: Karma and was planned for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360. After the release of Fahrenheit, the project was still in discussion, but ultimately scrapped in favour of Heavy Rain. Legacy In December 2021, shortly after the emergence of the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant, a cutscene featuring David Bowie's character encouraging a government uprising went viral on Twitter, leading to a resurgence in popularity thanks to the game's North America title, themes, and storyline. Misinformation on Bill Gates' being involved in the game began to spread in an attempt to connect it with conspiracy theories that he was responsible for the virus. Notes References 1999 video games Action-adventure games Adventure games Cancelled PlayStation 2 games Cancelled PlayStation (console) games Cyberpunk video games Dreamcast games Dystopian video games Eidos Interactive games Fictional populated places Fiction about memory erasure and alteration Metafictional video games Video games based on musicians Open-world video games Quantic Dream Science fantasy video games Single-player video games Video games about artificial intelligence Video games about demons Video games about police officers