Papers, Please
Congratulations. The October labor lottery is complete. Your name was pulled. For immediate placement, report to the Ministry of Admission at Grestin Border Checkpoint. An apartment will be provided for you and your family in East Grestin. Expect a Class-8 dwelling.
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The Westport Independent on Steam
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The Westport Independent is a censorship simulator taking place in a post-war country, governed by the recently elected Loyalist Party. As the editor of one of the last independent newspapers in the country, your job is to remove and edit the content of your paper, affecting the people’s opinion of both the rebels and the Loyalist...
The Westport Independent is a indie, simulation and dystopian game
developed and published by Double Zero One Zero.
Released on January 21st 2016 is available on Windows, MacOS and Linux.
It has received 312 reviews of which 235 were positive and 77 were negative resulting in a rating of 7.1 out of 10. 😊
The game is free to play on Steam.
The Steam community has classified The Westport Independent into these genres:
Media & Screenshots
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System requirements
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Windows
- Memory: 1 GB RAM
- Graphics: Open GL 2.0
- Storage: 100 MB available space
MacOS
- Memory: 1 GB RAM
- Graphics: Open GL 2.0
- Storage: 100 MB available space
Linux
- Memory: 1 GB RAM
- Graphics: Open GL 2.0
- Storage: 100 MB available space
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User reviews & Ratings
Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.
A solid game with an interesting premise, where you play as an editor deciding what stories to censor or publish in a post-war dystopia. The moral dilemmas and narrative tension are intriguing, but the gameplay feels a bit repetitive after a while. It’s a decent experience, but you can’t help but feel like it could’ve been better with a bit more depth or variety.
This is a game whose demo I played long ago, which I only recently came back to finally try for real. I don't know why I didn't play it then; I wonder if history would've been a bit different. The reason why I wonder that is that I find societal conjectures particularly interesting to contemplate, and this game in its inescapable polemics puts forward a comprehensible societal conjecture. It would've affected me had I played it fully four years ago; it is instead affecting me four years later. This game then does something that I think extensively forgives that: it uses those themes in a complicated puzzle the extent of which I can at least say takes more than three hours to master. It felt like an accomplishment getting riots in the staunch northern sector, and yet it left me wondering if there would be some manner of narrow path of light in this game. Newspapers that strike out against administrations that restrict them are not acting unjustly, but can the loyalists fall without so much dying? I feel compelled to resort to guessing at content I haven't seen in order to judge the game... which is to say, it successfully put me in suspense both within the story and about its multi-play metastructure. I have to give that credit. It also offers a clear source of biased exploration of that metastructure: what kind of paper are you running? Is the Independent a crime rag fixated on why everything is terrible? Is it a 'serious' industrial paper that loathes to share the celebrity press? How do each of these 'larger variations' affect the flow of this particular societal conjecture? I've seen another game authoring conjectures about societal implications in this manner. That was Headliner. I think both do a credit to the concept. To speak of the concept in a way that might promote something other than copy-catting, thinking about this game makes me think that something along this lines - retaining the awareness of societal implications - could be grown towards simulation stature to model a software toy version under fewer constraints. As a network influence model, it would be another way for people to fantasize about perfect influence, this time representing the perspective of journalism. As a petty note, I also like the simple sepia color scheme. I think it's used artfully. I can tell that these colors used this monotonously risk being boring, but they didn't bore me here.
The Westport Independent is a great example of a good tiny game. It can hold your attention for a night or two. You won't regret your playtime. Regardless of fact that this is very small it has freedom of choice, quite rich branched storyline and colourful charachters. Yes colorful, even if in the game you see only one or two text lines and silhouettes in cutscenes between turns. Many games with big budgets for dialogues and storylines by renowned authors couldn`t give me comparable good experience. Despite the fact that questions brought up by game designers are not currently important for me because of a different attitude toward media in my country and in the western world, I am glad to see that game developers bring up questions that are important for them, I believe. Thank you guys! I don`t regret spending money on it and I recommend this pretty game to everyone who reads or watches news.
If you expect an ambitious game in the league of "Papers, Please", you will be highly disappointed. This game takes less than thirty minutes to complete. Most people think it's too short, but personnaly it allowed me to do a few runs, whereas I did one game and a half of "Papers, Please". This way, you can try many things. In my first run, I aligned with the government, which was very easy. In my following runs, I tried to make each district revolt. The South and East are easy to "win"; the West and, above all, the North are super hard to turn around (they are lawful Loyalists in the beginning). This was where the game became challenging. I find it amusing to think that one of my hardest challenge in video games was to inform rich people through newspapers that their government is evil and that they should work against it. Who knew we would someday live in such a time... However, I'm still unsure if the challenge is either very tough and complex or just plain unfair. I feel like you don't know enough about the mechanics. It seems like it's not any articles speaking against the government that will get to the North folks. What makes it even harder is that you have to avoid making the government suspicious; to influence the North, you will almost inevitably bust your limit. How do you find the balance? Lucas Pope, the creator of "Papers, Please", created a free game with a similar concept to The Westport Independant called Republia Times (it was released before). It wasn't divided into districts, and the outcome of everything you did was obvious. Also, the gameplay consisted only of choosing which articles to publish, and how big they would be on the front page; you couldn't modify the titles or the content, and you didn't have to assign them to a specific journalist. Finally, there wasn't all the marketing side of the game; your articles were either political (which are not popular but are influential) or about celebrities or entertainement (which have the opposite effect). So it was simpler and more straightforward, but at the same time isn't it a bit boring if you're sure of the outcome, and if there's no challenge? The community is so inactive that you can't expect to find a guide on the web. You can't even find a clear description of the achievements. So yeah, I'm a bit mixed about all of this, but overall I had a great time and it was very compelling to try to make rebels out of the North folks (in which I succeeded! Yay for me :D ).
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Frequently Asked Questions
Yes, The Westport Independent is free to play on Steam.
The Westport Independent is not on sale because is already free to play on Steam.
Yes, The Westport Independent received 235 positive votes out of a total of 312 achieving a rating of 7.08.
😊
The Westport Independent was developed and published by Double Zero One Zero.
Yes, The Westport Independent is playable and fully supported on Windows.
Yes, The Westport Independent is playable and fully supported on MacOS.
Yes, The Westport Independent is playable and fully supported on Linux.
This information about The Westport Independent is not available yet.
This information about The Westport Independent is not available yet.
No, The Westport Independent does not support VR.
The Westport Independent is a single-player game.
No, The Westport Independent does not currently offer any DLC.
No, The Westport Independent does not support mods via Steam Workshop.
No, The Westport Independent does not support Steam Remote Play.
Yes, The Westport Independent is enabled for Steam Family Sharing. This means you can share the game with authorized users from your Steam Library, allowing them to play it on their own accounts. For more details on how the feature works, you can read the original Steam Family Sharing announcement or visit the Steam Family Sharing user guide and FAQ page.
You can find solutions or submit a support ticket by visiting the Steam Support page for The Westport Independent.
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Additionally, we incorporate data from the SteamSpy API, which offers insights into game sales and player statistics. This helps us present a comprehensive view of each game's popularity and performance within the gaming community.
Last Updates| Steam data | 22 September 2026 23:10 UTC |
|---|---|
| SteamSpy data | 15 October 2026 08:36 UTC |
| Steam price | 22 September 2026 23:10 UTC |
| Steam reviews | 21 October 2026 16:07 UTC |
If you'd like to dive deeper into the details about The Westport Independent, we invite you to check out a few dedicated websites that offer extensive information and insights. These platforms provide valuable data, analysis, and user-generated reports to enhance your understanding of the game and its performance.
- SteamDB - A comprehensive database of everything on Steam about The Westport Independent
- SteamCharts - Analysis of The Westport Independent concurrent players on Steam
- ProtonDB - Crowdsourced reports on Linux and Steam Deck The Westport Independent compatibility
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Developer
Double Zero One Zero
Publisher
Double Zero One Zero
Release
21 Jan 2016
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