When talking to people about Inside

Without a single spoken or written word, the opening hour of Inside envelopes you in a tense and terrifying world. Your nameless hero, who appears to once again be a child, is on the run from some sort of fascist regime experimenting with mind control. And if you don't run fast enough, there's hell to pay in some of the most disturbing death animations I've ever seen. I won't go any further into the story than that, because part of the wonder of Inside is discovering its incredible mysteries.

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It's immediately apparent that the 6 years Inside has been in development has been used to polish every single facet of the game. The animation and controls are wonderful and responsive, the use of depth in the foreground and background makes every frame stunning, and the lighting and particle effects are as evocative as I've seen in quite some time.

The puzzles in the opening hour of Inside do a great job of subtly teaching you a mechanic, and testing you to the max before adding in a new twist. They’re just tricky enough to cause me a moment of pause, but subtle environmental cues and incredibly tight controls never made the barriers annoying.

The core mechanic I’ve discovered so far is the ability to mentally control otherwise lifeless bodies, and maneuvering a slew of them in order to solve various puzzles. Aside from being a smart, clever mechanic, it ties in with the story and world, and makes me continually question the ethics of my actions. It reminds me a lot of 2013’s incredibly-underrated puzzler The Swapper.

With tense chase scenes and smart puzzles, most of the opening has you moving through the world in a relatively-linear fashion. But taking the time to explore the environment led to the discovery of some strange collectables that just added to Inside’s overall sense of mystery.

I don't know if the puzzles will continue to grow and challenge me. I don't know if the story will keep intriguing me with its carrot at the end of its stick. And I don't know if there's a light at the end of this impossibly-bleak tunnel. But what I do know is that the opening hour of Inside makes it seem like the long road from Limbo was more than worth the wait.

Marty Sliva is a Senior Editor at IGN. He once ate a whole blueberry. Follow him on Twitter @McBiggitty.