Last Year is an asymmetrical horror survival game, pitting five survivors against one big bad monster in each match. It actually launched in 2018 on Discord’s store, but when that abruptly went down, the game was completely unavailable to players and anyone who wanted to check it out. That’s the way it has been until this year, when Last Year is coming back with a vengeance, on Steam.

After Dark

Last Year launched with an initial chapter, The Nightmare, which was the first piece of content the game received. This year, the game is coming back with a new chapter, After Dark, which anyone who purchased the game in 2018 will automatically get as a thank you for getting into the game. A new trailer for the game, and this DLC, has just been released, showing that the game is coming to PC on the 12th of December. Check it out below and keep on reading afterwards.

Community Driven Development

Elastic Games has used community feedback to shape this next chapter, and that’s how they’re going to operate moving forward with all future content for the game. In the game, five players, taking on the role of five classmates, must survive against an enemy player-controlled horror, in this case a giant spider. Each classmate has a range of abilities, but they aren’t the only consideration that players need to think about when choosing who to play as.

With each match in Last Year there are multiple levels. As classmates survive a level, they’ll gain new abilities based on their experience of surviving against the monster in the previous area. This means that if the enemy player doesn’t take everyone down quickly, they can end up getting mushed against the wall by one of the classmate’s powerful arcane magic skills, if they survive long enough.

Something Different

Other asymmetrical horror games have overpowered killers hunting survivors, so this is nothing new in Last Year. What is new is the progression of characters as they make it through each area alive. This is a punishing system for the enemy player, and in a way it makes them look stupid for not being able to take down the classmates earlier, with far fewer abilities. I think this mechanic is really interesting, turning the genre on its head a bit and putting the focus on playing as a team. In other asymmetrical horror games it’s all too easy to wait to be the last survivor alive, sneaking out the back door when it unlocks automatically.

I would love to give Last Year a go, because it looks like it’ll be a lot of fun. It’s a shame that the game got such a raw deal with its launch in 2018, but hopefully the reception it gets this year will more than make up for it.