While experimenting on the islands of the Archipelago, something goes terribly wrong. The experiment goes haywire and you become stranded on the mysterious islands of the Archipelago. You have to find all the fragments and return them to the mysterious standing stones to teleport off the island, but you are not alone. Victorian-dressed, British Robots are hunting you down, trying to kill you before you escape. Nobody really knows where the robots are from or why they are hunting you, but they appear to live on the island. Your only goal is to survive, find all the fragments, and return them to the standing stones so that you can teleport off the island.
There are multiple types of robots:
- Hunter: The most common enemy, Hunters guard pieces of the device, buildings, and can be found roaming the landscape. They are armed with a shotgun and are dangerous in their large groups, though individually they are inaccurate and rather weak. Some are accompanied by Hounds.
- Hound: Loyally follow other robots. They have better senses than the other robots and can run faster than you. They are unarmed, but they will bite you and pin you down so that other robots can catch up. Definitely not man's best friend.
- Balloon: Unarmed, but equipped with a visible searchlight. They patrol the islands, looking for the player. If they see you, they will sound the alarm and attract other robots to your location.
- Rider: A mounted version of the Hunter, dressed in the traditional garb of the English fox hunt, though the horse has jet engines instead of legs. They carry no weapon, but getting run over by a jet-powered robot horse can hurt just as much.
- Bog Creature: A swarming mass of mechanical tentacles, the Bog Creature lurks in the water. They go after the player if you sit in the water for too long.
- Poacher: Solitary types who hang around in wooded areas. They lay traps and are armed with the blunderbuss, and also tend to carry dynamite (for fishing, you know). If a group of hunters goes into their territory they will sometimes try to fight them off.
- Squire: Huge and dressed in the clothing of the English gentry, the Squire hangs about towns singing music hall pieces. Unlike other robots, the Squire doesn't attack the Player on sight and may even fight off other robots for you. However, if you get caught looting or start a fight with other robots while in his village, you'll be at the business end of his revolver.
- Scarecrow: The stuff of nightmares. The scarecrow stands in tall grass (normally your best cover) swaying inconspicuously. If you get too close to one, its eyes turn on and the Scarecrow will teleport directly behind you when you're not looking. To make things worse, it sends out an alarm to nearby robots.
- Landowner: Accompanied by two dogs, the Landowner is a giant, two-storey tall robot, hunched over and armed with an enormous cane and monocle. Once he sees you, he will continually stalk you. After his dogs have caught you, he stuns you with his shock cane, and then stabs you with it. The Landowner cannot be killed so the best strategy, when confronted with one, is to run like Hell.
The game was funded on Kickstarter on December 2nd, 2012, and released on May 2nd, 2014.
A more serious, stealth-focused Spiritual Successor, The Light Keeps Us Safe, was released by Big Robot in October 2019.
A remastered version with several updates called Sir, You Are Being Hunted: Reinvented Edition is scheduled to be released some time in 2022.
This game provides examples of:
- Anachronism Stew: Ignoring the robots, the game has the general feel of the late Victorian or Edwardian Eras, with fashion, speech style, and weaponry befitting the time. Then you come upon derelict wind turbines, shopping trolleys, and high-tension power lines in the Industrial biome.
- Apocalyptic Log: Letters found in the various homes shed some light onto exactly what happened on the archipelago. Robots showed up and began killing residents whenever they wandered outside their homes while sending them letters attempting to lure them out of their homes (telling them they've won a sweepstakes or offering them free food) while promising they most definitely will not be murdered. It's strongly hinted the robots came from an alternate universe after an irresponsible scientist conducting research into the standing stones accidentally opened a portal between worlds. There are other lore drops that imply a different scenario, where the robots were originally servants of humanity who turned on their creators.
- Awesome, but Impractical: The Blunderbuss at pointblank can 1 shot every killable enemy in the game. It is however the loudest weapon in the game and has a significant reload time as well as a clip of 1. Ammo for it is also incredibly scarce. The only time the player should seriously consider wielding the massive beast is to take care of Squires, otherwise the shotgun reloads faster, still maintains strong close range damage, and has ample more ammunition to be found.
- A Winner Is You: Originally, completing the game just gave you the same screen showing you your stats that you get when you are killed, only with a brief "congratulations, you win" sentence. Later on, they did add a short animation of the standing stones powering up, as well as a credits screen with a song by Professor Elemental playing over it.
- British Stuffiness: The whole look and feel of the game.
- Boring, but Practical: The Pistol while requiring good aim can take down Hunters and Poachers in only two shots from a safer distance and with greater accuracy than the Shotgun. In a similar note, the Axe can kill the same enemies in 2 hits as well, and while it requires getting up close and personal, Hunters tend to flee after being hit once, making surviving such encounters much more manageable if the player can dodge their shots while closing the distance.
- Cutesy Name Town: All the villages have rather twee randomly-generated British sounding names, like "Bishop's Frumpswich".
- Damage Over Time: Getting shot has a chance to inflict bleeding. The only way to remove it is to use a bandage, meaning if the player starts bleeding out and has no bandages on hand, they must desperately try to find some before inevitably dying. Because of this, players should always keep some in their inventory, for if RNG isn't in their favor or they're far away from any loot sources they are guaranteed to die from this.
- Disguised Horror Story: The game seems fairly light-hearted at first. You're being hunted, but you're being hunted by robots with mustaches and tweed jackets. While they constantly make computery noises, and their voices are tiny, they nonetheless lighten things up by constantly spouting very British lines. Then in the distance, out of the fog strides The Landowner on impossibly long legs, topped by his inhumanly-proportioned body...
- A lot of things can be creepy even if they're not dangerous. Seeing a group of Hunters jerkily stroll through a meadow looking for you, or a Balloon far off in the fog sweeping its searchlight can be nerve-wracking.
- God forbid you encounter
the Scarecrow without knowing about it.
- Enemy Chatter: The robots are quite talkative, and constantly make computery noises so you can hear them from quite far away.
- Enemy Civil War: Sometimes you will encounter robots in firefights with other robots. However, robot types that are sometimes hostile to each other (i.e. Hunters and Poachers) are just as likely to politely ignore each other, so you can't rely on this.
- This generally depends on the robot's "job". Hunters naturally are at odds with Poachers, for example.
- First-Person Ghost: Taken even farther than normal in that your character's hands aren't even seen; weapons seemingly float in front of your field of vision and operate themselves.
- Giant Mook/Heavily Armored Mook: Squires are a good 8 or 9 feet tall and can take a lot more hits than the other robot types, excluding the Landowner. On the plus side, they won't attack you unless they spot you looting houses or fighting with other robots.
- Ghost Town
- Glass Cannon: Poachers are slow and can't take any more damage than the Hunters, but their blunderbusses do massive damage and are a one-hit kill at close range.
- Grid Inventory: Everything you carry, even maps and ammunition, has to fit into the grid, leading to an:
- Inventory Management Puzzle: You need to leave space to carry fragments that you come across, as well as weapons, food, ammunition, and handy distractions. And rifles and shotguns are five squares long, which is just long enough to be inconvenient.
- Haunted Castle: One of the four biomes.
- Hell Is That Noise: Cometh the Landowner
. - Hunting the Most Dangerous Game: Sir, you are being hunted.
- Hyperactive Metabolism: Sir can recover from gunshot wounds, lacerations, and falling off cliffs by applying a bandage, waiting a few minutes, and drinking some tea.
- Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: The robot Hunters are terrible shots, even at close ranges. It doesn't help that they're armed with shotguns with wide scatter patterns. Unfortunately, they tend to travel in groups and your weaponry isn't much more accurate either.
- Implacable Man: The Landowner is slower than any other robot and is limited to a close-range attack, but is entirely invincible and will pursue you relentlessly instead of giving up after losing line of sight for a couple minutes like the other robots do.
- Invincible Boogeymen: The Landowner is completely invincible to any and all damage. While by default he does not stalk the player, once he spots him however, he is then impossible to lose; He will permanently have line of sight on the player making hiding from him futile. The only way to escape him once he's hunting you is to flee to another island.
- Kleptomaniac Hero: You break into houses to obtain supplies.
- MacGuffin: The "Mysterious Fragments" you have to collect to escape from the archipelago.
- Mecha-Mooks: All enemies are British robots.
- Never Say "Die": Mr. Walters only says that the residents of buildings are "not at home". They've most likely been butchered by the robots, as borne out by the incredible amount of human skulls you'll find when searching the homes.
- Offscreen Teleportation: The scarecrow teleports behind you the moment you look away from it.
- Oop North: The Industrial biome is pretty much this, minus the Yorkshiremen.
- Punk Punk: The chaps at Big Robot call it Tweedpunk. The premise of the game is basically a fox hunt, with a Victorian gentleman or lady as the fox, across an after-the-end section of Britain's Industrial North.
- Purely Aesthetic Gender: The title screen allows you to switch between playing as a "Sir" or a "Madam". The only effect? The title screen, and Mister Walters' narration when you begin a new game.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: All robot enemies have red eyes.
- Regenerating Health: Your health will slowly regenerate to full as long as you're reasonably well-fed and aren't bleeding out. However, the regeneration rate is quite slow, so it won't help you in combat.
- Resources Management Gameplay: You have to eat to keep up your vitality, but you can only carry so much, and you need room for weapons and space to carry fragments that you find.
- Robot Dog: The Hounds.
- Run or Die: Once The Landowner has found the player, their only option is to flee to another island, as he maintains permanent line of sight on them, is unkillable, and kills them in a single hit.
- Stealth-Based Game: It's usually much wiser to avoid and distract the enemies than to engage them.
- Throwing the Distraction: The player can lob empty bottles in order to distract the hunters and make a break for it. Conveniently, when you drink bottles of beer or sherry that you find around, they automatically become ammunition for further distractions.
- Title Drop: In the introduction cutscene a narrator explains you your situation and ends with the words "Oh, and do be careful, Sir, you are being hunted."
- Voice with an Internet Connection: Mister Walters, your Butler.
- Zerg Rush: A single Hunter, with its bad aim and bad peripheral vision, is mostly harmless on its own. However, they aren't usually alone and are quite not harmless when in groups of four or five...or eight or nine or...
