Beyond The Darkness Review (PC)

I’m traipsing through the eerily quiet quarters of an old home, glued to the warm but woefully inadequate flame of a minuscule lamp. Oh yes, there are horrors here that wish only to locate the center of my most vulnerable fear. Like moths to a flame, they will find me, and they will extinguish that one guiding light that stands between me and the distant horizon. Alas, I must continue to tiptoe through these hollow halls of perpetual despair and uncertainty, for I have a dream that needs to come true. I must find my family, even if it means having to descend even deeper into this rabbit hole of nightmarish vigor and foreboding. Yes, the nightmares are more intense than ever before, but with this one small flame between my palms, I shall travel Beyond The Darkness, into the depths of a world that doesn’t want me.

I’ll admit, it was Little Nightmares’ long tunnel of seemingly picture-perfect depictions that brought me to the root of Beyond The Darkness. Call it a shot in the dark, but it must’ve been the way the ominous textures merged with the airtight locales, or the way it made me feel inadequate and uncomfortable against the likes of other, more powerful beings or puzzles. Whatever it was that led me down that path, it seemed almost impossible to differentiate between the two—the source and the depiction. The question I wanted to find the answer to, of course, was all rather simple: What would Beyond The Darkness do to sever the link between its existence and the shadow overhanging the borders of its womb? To find that answer, I had to go beyond. I had to shine the light.

Into the Dark

Beyond The Darkness tells the story of a girl—Millie—whose dark and twisted memories continue to haunt her throughout the night. Her memories, much like those of a similar adolescent who shares an extremely vivid imagination, serve as terrifying doorways into a realm that’s rife with a combination of illogical ideas, puzzles, and woeful behavior that bears the power to transform even the most flavorful of things into glints of horrifying trademarks. In this inescapable world, Millie is given an objective: to tiptoe through the darkness, and to find her way back to her family. And that, conveniently, is where you begin your journey: bound for the source of the darkness, equipped with the rather faint glimmer of a small flame that just so happens to act as a spiritual shield for the horrors that linger in the shadows.

The game itself is more or less the “Millie” equivalent of Little Nightmares, in the form that, each area comes with a different story—a pocket, of sorts, in which players can tackle a series of unique themes, obstacles, and puzzles, all whilst simultaneously working to thicken the plot and reach the other side of a rather harrowing story. Rather than resorting to a bag-sporting boy or a mere yellow raincoat, though, players have another tool at their disposal: a lamp—a peculiar trinket that not only has the power to guide you through the corridors, but also to help you solve certain puzzles, tackle monsters, and generally point you in the right direction, rather conveniently. And that, in a true sense of the word, is the light at the end of the tunnel. Light, darkness — you get the picture.

My Guiding Light

As I mentioned earlier, Beyond The Darkness is, at least to some extent, a linear game; it slumps you with a selection of scrambled fragments for memories, and simply asks that you reconstruct them by delving deeper into their worlds and solving a compilation of relatively complex puzzles. Between these dynamic puzzles and obstacles, you also have a few other tasks that require a bit of forward planning—illustrious cat-and-mouse chases, for example, which make up a surprising amount of the overall campaign. Aside from these fairly common tropes that often pocket themselves into the DNA of most, if not all indie horror games, there is also a fair bit of exploration, interactivity, and the occasional mystery to unravel. Suffice it to say, Beyond The Darkness has a lot of the same hallmark aspects as a prestigious IP — and that’s fine; imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and all.

Of course, to say that the game is entirely without any originality wouldn’t stand for a convincing argument here. As it turns out, Beyond The Darkness does come clean with a lot of excellent features—the use of the lamp mechanic, being one of its most important pieces, for sure. And not just that, but also the inclusion of some truly terrifying areas, too, most of which are often propelled by a lot of quality set pieces and not to mention an awful lot of atmospheric noise and visual effects. Moreover, there are plenty (and that’s putting it lightly) of great scares to onboard over the course of the relatively short journey, too. Is it the scariest game you will ever subject yourself to? Probably not, no. However, if Little Nightmares ticks all of the right boxes for you, then honestly, you’re in safe hands here.

A Pinch of McGee

As luck would have it, Beyond The Darkness isn’t let down by any wooden mechanics or a significant lack of technical polish — or anything of that sort, for that matter. In fact, in the handful of hours I spent trucking through the dimly lit quarters of the game’s nightmarish locales, I was able to bathe in a commendable amount of finessed details and lore, both of which complimented the control system and UI remarkably well. To that end, I just couldn’t find anything to complain about.

On another note, there’s a certain hint of American McGee that springs out from the woodwork here. To put it simply, if you’ve ever so much as nibbled at the tip of Alice: Madness Returns, then there’s a good chance that you’ll fall head over heels in love with a lot of the design choices that bleed through the cracks of Beyond The Darkness’ internal world. It isn’t a direct replica of McGee’s twisted anthology by any stretch, but it is, on the other hand, evident that Alice served as one of the game’s primary influences. And again, that’s fine.

Verdict

While you could certainly argue that Beyond The Darkness borrows one or two tropes from the likes of Little Nightmares or Bramble: The Mountain King, the honest truth is, the game has more than enough of its own charm to warrant the attention of its ilk. Yes, it could very well be a representative of a much larger chain of doll-like horror stories, but despite its natural fixation on utilizing one or two assets from its peers’ catalog, it’s still worth pointing out that, as far as solid independent horror titles go, Beyond The Darkness is definitely a prime torchbearer for the genre’s fleeting popularity. And that’s saying something, given the sheer quantity of works that also include the usual trappings of a familiar IP.

To give credit where it’s due, I do believe that Beyond The Darkness has some extraordinary ideas, few of which pertain directly to the haunting atmosphere that the game tries so desperately to bring to light. Add the fact that it also delivers a gratifying amount of in-depth puzzles, memorable monsters, and even the occasional tapestry of jump scares, and I’d say you’ve all the appropriate ingredients for a well-baked descent into the underbelly of a children’s nightmare. To that I say, you know, kudos, My Little Studio — you’ve successfully managed to stir the pot and create something that, while still oddly familiar to the most acquainted of horror fans, has all of the bells and whistles of a brilliant indie game.

For the sake of bringing some closure — yes, you absolutely should give Beyond The Darkness a whirl. Conclusively, it is, for lack of a better description, Bramble meets In Nightmare, with of course a few unmistakable undertones of Gylt and—you guessed it—Little Nightmares. That’s a winning combination right there, folks.