Genre; 2D Action/Adventure/Horror, Side Scroller, Puzzle/Platformer

Platform: PC

Available On: PC, Xbox One, PS4

Released: June 29, 2016 (Xbox One), July 7, 2016 (PC), August 23, 2016 (PS4)

Playdead has returned with another creepy child torture sim, and this time they’ve turned the weirdness right up to 11 – just the way Mr John Thursday likes it. I somehow didn’t even know Inside was coming until it was already here and people were freaking out about it. So I got my hands on a copy and here we are.

Let’s get into it.

Graphics/Presentation: 10/10

If you’ve played Limbo, you already have a pretty good idea of what Inside looks and plays like. It’s not a sequel per se, but a sort of spiritual successor – clearly a progression / evolution of the same idea. I loved Limbo. Inside elevates the experience and gifts the world with a brilliant, new masterpiece.

The world design is nearly all dark shades of grey with brief bursts of light that break through the black, soft and blinding bright. However, unlike Limbo’s monochromatic aesthetic, Inside is littered with rich colours, though muted so heavily they almost render the world back to grey. Something about that muted tone makes the near colourlessness of the world stand out, rather than giving the impression of colour being injected in, it seems instead that it’s been drained.

The sound design is eerily quiet, there are no words to tell the story, and sound effects are quite often disturbingly realistic – sometimes to the point of sickening. I’m far from squeamish, but more than once my neighbours probably wondered why I suddenly cried out, “Holy fucking Jesus.”. (Well done, Playdead. Thanks for the dreams. That pig. Seriously. What. The. Fuck. You bastards. I can never unsee that.) The sound, and subtle music works closely with the gameplay, serving cues to the player during puzzles, as well as providing an atmospheric ambiance that perfectly sets the mood for this twisted story.

Lighting plays a big part in the art design, creating a phantasmal tone and casting a clear spotlight on the level of polish and movement in the 3D models. It’s a truly haunting, gorgeous game with brilliant, ghostly lighting in places, and cold, harsh laboratory brightness in others. It also helps to showcase just how incredible the animations are, from the way the boy moves, stumbles, and falls, to how environment objects move, break, shatter and explode – it’s all so well done that you can feel the weight and impact in the gameplay, and it makes it that much more immersive.

Gameplay: 9/10

As soon as the game began, it immediately felt familiar. The simple control scheme, physics based puzzles and environment interactions are directly carried over from Limbo, with added nuance, smoothness, and the incredible, enhanced animations. The game explains nothing to you, immediately dropping you into the first stage, again, much like Limbo, with no other choice but to progress forward.

With nothing more than a jump button and a grab button, you must find your way through each section by manipulating objects. Whether it’s pushing, pulling, running, opening, jumping onto, or smashing through something, solving puzzles and playing with the physics of the world and the objects within will bring you to the solutions you need to drive forward. There’s some outrageously surprising solutions, though I never actually struggled to solve any of the puzzles, save two, and for those: one was the solution I immediately thought of, then cast aside; and the other was just a door I missed, probably because I was baked. So if a challenge is what you’re looking for, you might be disappointed in the ease of the puzzles – as clever and fun as they can be to solve, they’re far from difficult.

The constant tension the game conveys, and the mystery of the narrative is much more compelling than the gameplay, and the shocking revelations when realizing the solution to some of the puzzles is satisfying and entertaining in a way that goes beyond the simple pride of successfully solving a problem. The gameplay, instead of demanding skill or dexterity, unlike most games, is nearly a passive element, and is used quite cleverly as a vehicle to enhance the theme of control in the story.

You can finish the game in a single sitting, maybe two – a couple hours, essentially, depending on how long it takes you to figure the puzzles out. That’s really my only complaint. It’s very short, and once you played it and know the puzzle solutions, as awesome as it is, a second playthrough just isn’t the same. Not that I don’t recommend a second playthrough, at least. There’s the weird, hidden machine orbs to find and some details you might pick up on that you missed the first time. Like a great film, you need to experience it a couple times to better grasp it.

Story: 10/10

I don’t even know where to start. It’s all speculation, really. There’s no words, no dialogue, no books or journals to find and read. In fact, there are no collectibles in the game. The only thing that resembles what we would normally perceive as a collectible are the unexplained machine orbs that look like underwater mines with glowing pegs. Find them all and unplug them and a secret ending becomes available in an earlier section of the game, which just raises even more questions. There’s an awful lot more going on than the sparsely quiet soundtrack implies.

In a similar vein to Limbo, you appear to be a lost boy in the woods, only this time pursued by what seems to be “men in black” who will fucking chloroform you with a rag if they catch you, and later on will shoot you with dart guns and even sick viscous dogs after you, who will tear you to shreds and eat you alive if they catch you. The deaths this boy in the red sweater suffers from are violent and gruesome most of the time, and the great physics in the game only help to make them all the more shocking.

It only gets weirder as you go. A farm full of dead pigs, and worse; a destroyed factory submerged in water, with a seriously creepy, naked, long haired humanoid “thing” that swims terrifyingly fast and drags you down into a deep watery grave; the laboratory, with all those “zombies” and “scientists”. Is it an alien invasion, farming and experimenting on humans? Is it a government secret? Dystopian nightmare future? Is it a hallucination? Did the boy escape or was this all planned to test him? Who is the boy? Why are some people trying to catch him, and some urging him on and helping him? What the fuck is that “thing”! Is it breaking the fourth wall and looking straight at us while we control the boy…? Do I even want to know?

Inside is a masterpiece. A timeless work of art. People will theorize and talk about the little details, symbolisms, and metaphors for years to come. It’s an amazing feat, to have created something so profound, that says so much, on so many levels, and never utters a single word. There are a few details near the final moments of the game that very clearly point to something much more deliberate going on than what seemed to be moments of free will. One detail in particular is very telling, and also very easy to miss, since you won’t actually recognize it until after you’ve already seen it – and saying even that feels like a spoiler, so let’s end it on that note.

In Summary:

Pros: mysterious story, captivating atmosphere, incredible animations, amazing physics, lighting, art design, so fucking creepy

Cons: very short game, puzzles were too easy

9.5/10

Don’t foolishly think you’re safe in your little bubble