I’m always happy to give credit where it is due, and while there have been a number of medical dramas and surgery games of various types out there, I’ve never seen anything quite like Bio Inc. Redemption. Here you’ll have the option to work on either saving patients or hastening their demise, with the basic mechanics between them both being the same… just one is certainly a bit more morbid a path to follow than the other. It does make for being a bit overwhelmed at first, as there’s quite a bit to understand in order to succeed, but with persistence it’s pretty engaging.

The first layer you’ll need to understand is that you’ll need to flip between your patient’s various vital systems, looking to zap various blood cells, proteins, and other elements in order to fill up Bio Points that you’ll need in order to keep things moving at a higher level. Once you’ve got more than a few you’ll then move to attempting diagnosis. By changing between symptoms your goal will be to look for which of the patient’s vital organs are most commonly affected, then drilling down to look more granularly at sub-systems that are being hit. With those in mind you’ll try to pursue a variety of diagnostic tests in the hopes of determining what may be going on. Once you understand that you’ll move on to the bigger picture and what means you have of treating their issues. While, as you progress, more and more complexity and elements will be piled onto you, that core loop remains in place throughout.

The biggest issue the game has, unfortunately, is that the controls simply aren’t implemented in a coherent and approachable way. You can tell it has come over from the mobile space where everything is done through the touchscreen, but unfortunately they’re clumsy at best with a controller. Whether having to hold down a trigger to then use one of the joysticks at times but the D-Pad at others, calling the controls cumbersome would be an understatement. The issue with this is that once you get rolling you’ll have patients whose condition worsens by the second, and having to fumble around to go between screens and get essential tasks completed is a real bummer. I’m sure this can be overcome with determination, but it’s far from optimum.

That leaves you with a few options if you think the concept of the game sounds interesting. The first would be to simply muscle it out and deal with the controller issues, hoping for the best or that they may get a patch to make them more sensible. The second would be to try your luck on a PC, where a mouse may be a bit more helpful. But the third, which may make the most sense anyway, would be to check it out on a mobile device, where it seems to be best suited. It’s playable on Switch, it’s just far from ideal.