Design of the game's setting was based on various elements of 1960s British culture, with the developer, Compulsion Games, seeking inspiration on dystopian societies from various influences in the media, such as Brazil, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Animal Farm, Fahrenheit 451, Brave New World, and heavily on the MaddAddam trilogy.

The developers focused on creating a story with strong narratives, while underlining gameplay with a sense of paranoia, and designing in-game decisions that are of moral gray areas and weight, which influence and affect later parts of the game. Taking place within the retro-futuristic version of the mid-1960s, following an alternative version of World War II, players take control over one of three characters, each of whom seek to complete a personal task while escaping the fictional city of Wellington Wells – a crumbling dystopia on the verge of societal collapse, due to the overuse of a hallucinogenic drug that keeps its inhabitants blissfully unaware about the truth of their world, while leaving them easily manipulated and lacking morals. Played from a first-person perspective, the game combines role-playing, survival, and light roguelike elements.

In 2016, an early access version was released for Windows, with the full game seeing wide release for PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One in August 2018. We Happy Few is an action-adventure video game developed by Compulsion Games and published by Gearbox Publishing.

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