## Description

_God’s Acre_ is the fourth episode of Republique, a crowd funded stealth game
released in episodic format. It is acquired as an in-app purchase and requires
the previous episodes to play. It was released around a year after the
previous one and for the first time simultaneously for the mobile and PC
platforms. It starts right after the events of the previous episode. When Hope
uses the elevator and reaches the surface, she finally manages to escape the
Metamorphosis complex where the game was previously set. She ends up in a dark
environment with many trees. When she approaches a gate, she is knocked down
by a new character called Mammoth, a giant caretaker with a split personality.

While the core elements are still in place, this episode is for many areas
also very different from all previous ones. There is an entirely new
environment with larger and outdoor locations, such as a graveyard, a crypt, a
large hedge maze and different high tech laboratories. The Prizrak soldiers of
the previous episodes are replaced by Mammoth, the single enemy in _God’s
Acre_. He roams through all the environments without a fixed path and cannot
be defeated, making him a constant threat. Hope can still avoid him using
small passages and using regular cover. When he catches her, he beats her
unconscious and she has to start over. There are no fixed hiding places and
Mammoth has very sensitive hearing. Running almost always draws his attention.
There are birds that can scare Hope and make her scream. The environments also
have plants that attract bees. When Hope runs into them accidentally, her
screams also draw in Mammoth.

There is also something different about Hope, as she is no longer referred to
as 390-H, but 390, and now suddenly has a wondering, childlike naivety, as if
she has lost parts of her memory. Cooper is no longer there to contact the
player and he is replaced by an anonymous helper. Being outside has caused
errors in the OMNI View interface. There are constant glitches, even though
the core concept of using cameras to examine the environment is still present.
Most other functions are now no longer accessible, such as the in-game map,
opening and closing doors, hacking electronic items and so on. The only thing
that is left is using a new camera function to take pictures of certain
objects in the environment, which act as intel for the anonymous helper and
trigger audio logs. These mostly focus on two new characters, the Israeli and
Iranian scientists Noam Peretz and Abal Ammash. The logs, combined with
scrambled petri dishes as a new type of collectible, explain how the
scientists were involved with setting up the project, mostly focusing on DNA
manipulation, along with the Pre-Cals as well as a new type of entity known as
Mirrors. This episode also reveals more about Prideaux and Zager.

Collectible items for this episode are the photographs as intel, banned books
hidden in the environment, and Zager tapes. There are no game cartridges and
also no items like the pepper spray or the taser. Up to seven TVs can be
discovered, with short segments about genetic manipulation and DNA encoding.
There are some small puzzles to solve. One has the player piece together a
voice message using different samples and another requires the quick entry of
a PIN code in a race against time. In the hedge maze different types of valves
need to be located. In this episode it is not possible to travel back directly
to the locations of the previous episodes, but it still possible to reload the
latest checkpoint for each one.

République: Episode 4 – God’s Acre