After sitting through a barrage of trailers at last week’s Summer Game Fest showcase, there were only a few that stuck in my mind. Heavy hitters like 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Resident Evil Requiem and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Stranger Than Heaven have domin﷽ated headlines and my imagination, but I’ve also saved some mental space for a few indie charmers like Felt That Boxing and Into the Unwell.
End of Abyss, a top-down atmospheric horror debut from Section 9 Interactive, was not one of those games. I love a lonel🌟y, creepy game, especially one with Inside vibes, but I haven’t been impressed by a top-down💃 shooter since I played Housemarque’s Dead Nation in 2010, and given how many other shiny new things there were to look at during the show, End of Abyss didn’t stand out to me.
I Saw 🌊Resident Evil Requ🌳iem Gameplay, And It Looks Like All The Best Parts Of 7 And 2 Remake Combined
A short look at Resident Eviꦰl Requiem proved Capcom hasn't lo⛎st its touch for building incredible tension in the mundane.
I’m glad I took the appointment to see it at Play Days last weekend, because it e🉐nded up being one of my favorite games of the entire show. Watching it again, the trailer for End of Abyss does a good job of capturing the vibe, but it doesn’t really tell you what it's like to play. While it controls like a Helldivers-style arcade shooter, it actually has more in common with search action games like , Alien: Isolation, and of course, Super Metroid.
Note: We’re calling Metroidvanias ‘168澳洲幸运5开奖网:search action games’ now, get on board.
An Unwitting Detective On A Harrowing Mission
This one doesn’t take much setup. You play as Cel, a young combat technician exploring a vast underground complex, abandoned by man but infested with mutants. Armed with just a s𝓡canner and a simple pistol, Cel ventures deeper and deeper into the compound on a mission t🦹o uncover the secrets lurking below.
The aforementioned game references certainly line up with End of Abyss’ premise, but I’m particularly struck by its similarities to Metroid Prime - scanner included. I’ve always seen Prime as a detective story. To survive and overcome the hostile world of Tallon IV, S🎀amus must first uncover the truth about what happened to the planet and the Chozo people who once lived there. The whole game is one long crime scene investigation to me, and right away, it was clear End of Abyss playing with the same themes and narrative structure.
It’s also utilizing the mechanics of traditional Metroidvania search action ga🔜mes. In the section I played, I encountered a locked door. Naturally✤ I went looking for a key, but before I could find it, I had to find other items that would allow me to access it. On a circuitous tour through the facilities uppermost levels, I found fending off leeches in ankle deep sewage water, shotgun blasting giant hands that lunged around like spiders, and using bombs to open up passageways between rooms. By the time I found the key that let me move one room closer to my objective, I had spent 20 minutes exploring, collecting items, and investigating clues with my scanner.
A Nostalgic Experience Packaged In A Brand New Way
Once I played End of Abyss it was obvious that it’s a search action game. I just didn’t realize it from the trailers, because I’m not used to seeing them from a top-down perspective. In fact, I can’t think of any twin stick shooters that have even th🌼e slightest hint of Metroid design principles. Maybe there’s one out there, but this was an entirely new approach to search action for me.
The genius of End of Abyss is the way it leans into the tropes and genꦆre conventions everyone knows, but presents it all in a way you’ve never seen before. Its lonely and isolated atmosphere is clearly inspired by Limbo, Inside, and Little Nightmares, but combining that aesthetic with Resident Evil 2’s hesitant exploration and Helldivers’ twitch controls and distant camera perspective make for an experience that’s very faᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚmiliar yet completely foreign at the same time. It’s disorienting, which is the entire point.
It’s hard to find a new angle in something as well worn as search action, but End of Abyss ♍looks like the kind of fresh experience that can inject some much needed energy back into tꦐhis genre. I changed the name, now Section 9 is changing the game.
