Below was released just over two years ago on PC and Xbox One to ‘generally favourable’, if a bit mixed, reviews. This review is based on the just-released port of the PS4 version, though the release is predominantly brought to the foreground as a result of its new ‘explore mode’, which I’ll get into later.
Below is an action adventure with some rogue-lite elements, which sees your tiny character ship-wreck on a mysterious, seemingly deserted, island. The game revels in its abstract nature and essentially leaves any explanation of mechanics and story up to the player to discover.
You quickly find yourself descending into the island, however, and the game reveals itself to you as a light dungeon crawler of sorts – exploring ‘rooms’ (caves) taking on monsters and finding items before progressing to the next level and further underground. Your view of your character and the environments is from a top down perspective, and while making yourself and enemies seem minute as a result, it also accentuates how gargantuan some of the environs and structures actually are, and it quickly becomes apparent that the surface of this island is a Tardis of sorts – revealing a vast interior.
Movement and combat is simplistic but fluid as you block, slash and roll, however a number of weapons to utilise such as a spear and a bow with multiple ammo types adds a bit of variety (and even strategy) to your encounters. When I first started I thought that combat was too easy and would quickly become boring, however as you progress you will encounter enemies that can’t just be spammed with a basic attack, and will have to utilise other methods (including just avoiding them) in order to succeed.
Once you reach this revelation, however, you will also realise that the game takes its “rogue” genre inspirations seriously when it comes to death. You will die in this game, and when you do you will wash up ashore again at the beginning of the game. Now, initially you might think that the game intends for you to start completely afresh, particularly as you find yourself without your lamp (a mystical item you find at the beginning of the game that can be used to illuminate the dark and discover secrets), but you’ll also see a skull on your map which shows you the last location where you died – and of course where you can get all your stuff back from your previous character.
Throughout the levels and rooms you will find bonfires which you can convert into quick travel points, however only one at a time, meaning if you manage to create one of these in a lower level you won’t have to traverse all the way back down. You can also uncover shortcuts, acting like elevators, and even if you do go back through from the beginning, you can still find new items and the game is partially generated, meaning it might not be exactly as you remembered it.
In order to survive the depths of the island, you’ll need to craft and cook resources. You can create simple torches that allow you to illuminate your surroundings while not using up the limited resource of your lamp’s power, and also arrows of various kinds, bandages for your wounds, and soups with healing and buffing effects. Your inventory space is crucially limited and so you have to engage in a fair bit of inventory management – it won’t be easy for those who like to pick up everything they come across – but you can also find a location to store your extraneous items for future use.
Your lamp has an economy in itself which relies on small glowing stones dropped by defeated enemies. The stones are used to keep your lamp alight – which you need to see where you’re going, obviously, but also to shine on surfaces/objects to reveal their secrets – and you also need to use these stones to create fast travel points of the bonfires.
Within the survival mode of the game, you will have to pay attention to your character’s hunger and thirst. An added challenge to the game’s already significant difficulty, though you can actually find items of food quite easily – one source being from cave bats that swarm around you – and so if you pay enough attention to your surroundings you should be okay. If you don’t want the hassle of this, however, the game’s brand new explore mode effectively removes this aspect of the game. I see some referring to it as an ‘easy mode’, but this isn’t necessarily true – the game, as far as I can work out, remains the same on explore as it does on survival, just without the need to keep your character fed and watered.
You can still utilise food to create soups for healing and buffs, but just eating food straight will provide you with no benefit at all. It’s a little bit odd, as you would have thought food could still be used to heal to an extent, but just be aware not to make the same mistake I did and waste resources in a panic trying to get health back on explore mode.
At its core and particularly during its most difficult moments, this is what Below can feel like – making mistakes and panicking, however learning from them for your next attempt. I wasn’t exaggerating when I said the game doesn’t explain anything to you, and so without reading a guide beforehand, your first few attempts will involve wasting items unnecessarily, taking on enemies you aren’t ready for and crafting items you have absolutely no use for at that moment in time. It can feel very frustrating, but if you allow yourself to make these mistakes and realise that ultimately, even with death, there’s no real punishment or loss of progress (aside from having to trek back to your last location), then you can begin to enjoy the game’s mysterious brutality…at least to a degree.
The notion of “it’s meant to be difficult, you’re meant to die and repeat” has never really convinced me. Not that I’m saying it’s not a valid design – this is mainly a personal aversion – but sometimes, and particularly in a game like this where it is very difficult to predict what lies ahead – re-treading old ground can feel like you’re wasting time. The staple of improving on each run is still here to an extent, but it relies entirely on the player, not on any stat increase or gain of better equipment. Things don’t become easier, but you gain knowledge of what’s ahead and how to deal with encounters.
Depending on how you look at it, the main draw of the game can either be in support or conflict with this kind of design. You see, Below is about exploration and discovery of what this strange island hides. There are some truly amazing sights to uncover underneath the island, and so much of the game is wrapped in this mystery which makes successfully discovering something a joy. But there’s always tension in that joy and discovery, because if you don’t know what it is that you’ve discovered, you could either leave with a nice prize and sense of accomplishment, or with your ass handed to you and starting over from the beginning again. It’s generally a matter of personal preference, though if I could level a criticism at the game for this design, it’s that it isn’t always a fair difficulty. Your character is very weak when it comes to taking damage, and sometimes all it takes to ruin your progress is running into an inconveniently placed trap.
Below relies a lot on its atmosphere and sense of magical discovery. Both of these aspects are used to great effect, which includes excellent sound design and a unique visual aesthetic, however I don’t personally feel that they make up for what the game forces you to feel in frustration. It’s the sort of game that feels like it should be a bit chill, if slightly ominous to play, but in actuality it stands next to your average souls-like game in edge of your seat, sweaty palm gameplay. The key difference here however, is that the learning process and ensuing ‘corpse run’ isn’t really that entertaining.
There’s a lot of ‘dead walking’ in between floors, with minimal encounters in the game’s simplistic combat, and if you manage not to die before retrieving all your lost items, you have to ask yourself what you gained from that second run through. It’s very difficult for me to think of anything worthwhile, and that’s a real problem. If the frustrating and repetitive middle ground isn’t as obnoxious to you, however, there’s some really cool things to discover in Below, but I would really recommend even just a basic guide/tips video or article to get you started. Otherwise however, I’m not sure I would recommend this to the average gamer, even with its explore mode.