BELOW

THERE’S MYSTERY BUT NOT ENOUGH MAGIC IN THIS BRUTAL DESCENT. US$29.95 | PC, Xbox One | www.whatisbelow.com

IN ITS EARLY hours, Below is heady, powerful stuff. Its tilt-shift aesthetic works minor wonders with scale, leaving you feeling particularly small and vulnerable. Its gloomy environments are shrouded in a mist that only clears as you inch forward, sword and shield at the ready for the creatures that scuttle forth, their red crystals glinting from the murk as an ominous early warning. As your every action echoes eerily around the rocks, Jim Guthrie’s shivery, menacing score, deployed with careful economy, steels you for the perils to come.

These survival elements discourage the desire to properly explore, since you haven’t really got the time. The combat, too, suggests a precise methodical approach you can ill afford, since you’re constantly against the clock. And the procedural elements that subtly change floor layouts are both too much and not enough: you can’t memorise and thus master your domain, but the trek back to your body rarely yields any fresh and exciting discoveries.

Even after all this time, Below doesn’t quite seem to be ready. More damagingly, it feels like it’s been surpassed in places. During its long journey to the light, the survival genre has flourished. Few of its peers can match it for atmosphere, but from crafting to combat to campfire checkpoints, Below feels a little behind the times.