Review key provided by Wired Productions
I will always stand by the idea that Fall is the best time of the year to play some survival horror games. Whether you’re replaying an old favorite or discovering something brand new, you should really get a jump-scare in, if you can. And having played some of Camel 101 and Wired Productions upcoming title, Beneath, and I can definitely say my experience was… scary.
Being totally upfront here, I am not a huge fan of this title. Luckily, the reason is mainly that the controls and gameplay are just a bit “meh” right now. However, this title isn’t at full release yet, as we only got a chance to play the demo.
The overall vibes and atmosphere in the opening of Beneath are quite intriguing. It tries its best to blend nautical and almost Umbrella Corp iconography in a way that feels otherworldly, in the best way. The opening alone really excited me, with a giant whale floating overhead and a dead shark signaling something wicked was coming.
Voice acting is actually really well done with this title, which impressed me a lot. Given the fact that the game looks and feels a bit too budget-y (I’ll get into this later), I wasn’t expecting anything spectacular, but the main character and his daughter, Amber, are given great dialogue thanks to their voice actors.
Where the game struggles a bit, in my eyes at least, is with visuals. This game looks very cheap, with textures being muddy and sharp, most enemies being bland, bloody humans, and the game having an overall “wet look” that signals poor visuals. Obviously, this is a budget title, but I often respect indie devs or publishers when they can make their budget games look stylistically appealing with creative choices. This game just looks like someone made it in an engine and spit it out on the Steam storefront.
My biggest complaint is that the game, so far, is not at all well-optimised for the controller. It works for about half the game, and that’s being generous. All menus need to be navigated by mouse and keyboard, but even then, they’re almost impossible to navigate, as they don’t recognize any inputs from me.
This stretches to in-game moments as well, like when I need to punch in a code. Sure, sometimes the gam allows me to move the cursor with my controller, but it’s so inaccurate that it’s barely usable. Lastly, guns will just fire on their own. And for a survival horror game, if there’s anything my guns shouldn’t be doing, it’s wasting their own ammo.
Honestly, I don’t know what the future holds for Beneath. I love its premise and ideas, but the package overall doesn’t seem very impressive thus far. Only time and its inevitable release will tell how things come together.
