Inside: A beautiful puzzle-platformer marked by unforgettable terror and fear

The era of the "puzzle-platformer" video game—in which players run through a 2D world with a weird gimmick or two to spice up the old Mario formula—has long passed. The late-'00s saw games like the time-bending Braid and the high-speed, tough-as-nails Super Meat Boy offer a breath of fresh, side-scrolling air, but those inventive gems were followed by a mess of games with much less heart.

One of the last greats in that era was Limbo, one of the best indies of 2010. That haunting, wordless game smeared its black-and-white world with a smoky blur and a preoccupation with death, and the results were visually and emotional staggering—but they had less impact in terms of gameplay. Its side-scrolling puzzles were occasionally clever, but they were there not so much to bend the player's mind as to spread out the pacing of the game's somber tale of a brother and a sister.

The Danish team at Playdead took its time crafting a follow-up game, and they could have spent those six years inventing a more innovative gameplay hook. But that's clearly not where their hearts are. Instead, these Danes have returned with Inside, a side-scrolling journey that once again doubles down on atmosphere over puzzles—and is all the better for it.

If you loved Limbo, you can quit reading now

Though Inside was revealed at a Microsoft press conference in 2014, the game went into PR hiding up until a few weeks ago, when the developers snuck the full, finished game into critics' inboxes shortly before this year's E3. Having lost track of its development, I wasted no time installing and playing the game—and am all the happier for not having looked up any videos or interviews about what I was about to play.

My familiarity with 2010's Limbo was guidance enough for what I was about to get into, and I therefore encourage anybody fond of that game's choice of atmosphere over challenge to close this browser tab, wait for the game's release date (tomorrow, June 29 on Xbox One, and Thursday, July 7 on Windows PCs), and jump in blind. That information, and the screenshot gallery above, should whet the target appetite.

But this is still a game worth talking about and scrutinizing without spoiling its most striking, memorable moments. For one, Inside does something I've never seen in a puzzle-platformer: it sells a complete, inexplorable world. Limbo, for all its beauty and its occasional depth-loaded scenes, was mostly flat, assumedly to sell the charcoal-and-ink aesthetic as something drawn by hand.

Playdead clearly wanted to be freed of that dimensional trickery, as Inside's forests, prairies, swamps, research facilities, and towns are no slouches for depth and detail. The devs have aimed their game's camera at a high, level angle and cranked the view distance up to a remarkable degree. You'll see tiny, terrified people running across the horizon or cars' bright headlights winding up and around lengthy streets, all while your in-game character—an unnamed child with no discernible eyes, lips, or other facial details—is cruelly forced to run either forward or backward on a 2D plane.

I found myself routinely cursing Playdead for forcing me to follow a rigid running track, which would occasionally curve around so that my character could logically navigate some of the 3D scenes, because I felt so wholly absorbed by the world the devs had created. Think of Inside's engine as the artful, European, indie version of how good this April's Quantum Break looked. Reflections and light sources bounce realistically off of every object in the world, all boosted by some of the most haunting light-placement direction I've ever seen in a video game. Rain drops, water splashes, flashlight trails, and foliage effects animate in crisp, consistent fashion.

And your main character, in spite of being rendered with no facial details, comes off as truly alive, curious and terrified by the world he traverses. Then again, your faceless hero is also brought to life in tremendous fashion by the game’s audio work. From voices to sound effects to background musical tones, Inside does a lot to sell this already-beautiful game world. Breathlessly panting one minute and gathering himself in a panicked hiding place the next, your character never leaves you wondering how he's feeling, and every creaking door, snapping branch, rustling car, and mechanical factory turn will have you on the edge of your gameplay seat—all bolstered by the kind of ambience-boosting, droning background noise that shouldn't be called "music" but definitely deserves to be celebrated as a "score."

A few weak, pace-dampening puzzles

Just be warned: Inside will not win you over purely as a puzzle-platformer. The game is divided evenly into four types of play: no-challenge traversal; obvious puzzles; annoying head-scratchers; and truly clever challenges. Like Limbo, Inside limits your control to running, jumping, and an open-ended "interact" button. Sometimes, that button lets you push boxes or climb ropes. Other times, its functionality opens up the game's best and weirdest moments.

At their worst, the game's puzzles put a real wrench into the game's momentum, which otherwise drives the game's most emotional and terrifying moments. When Playdead's creation is at its best, your pulse will race and your hands will put cracks into your controller's plastic shell, even when the game is at its easiest and simplest, because the game world does such a good job selling the feeling that you are here to protect and guide this game's hero. That feeling is unfortunately muted by a few puzzles that require repeated run-back-and-do-it-again attempts at a very specific bit of coordination or dealing with unwieldy new control schemes that appear mid-game.

At other times, the developers' puzzle vocabulary is stuck at a base level of "look for a box, push the box, climb the box, and alter where you push the box based on the environment." The only thing pushing you forward in those moments is the knowledge that the next place you're going to discover will look and sound freakin' amazing. The game's relative brevity, of only a few hours, is probably for the best, lest the developers stretch the game's weaker puzzles out any more thinly.

But for the most part, Inside does a good job of making its controllable parts—especially the weird ones I've left unspoiled—feel mysterious and captivating, just like its visual and aesthetic style, to sell a game that is more about feeling and energy than about a character-driven plot. Inside offers one of gaming's best-ever takes on emotionally charged sci-fi horror, the kind that should make creators such as J.J. Abrams go back to their own drawing boards and become inspired anew. Its varied, shadowy worlds, smothered in beautiful effects and bizarre, wordless storytelling, finely straddle the line of "should this be a video game" just enough that you couldn't imagine this experience any other way than by controlling its hero through a dark, unforgettable journey.

And just as Limbo's ending was argued over and interpreted in various ways for some time, I expect Inside to spark a healthy debate. Playdead's latest may fit all kinds of interpretations, but whatever conclusions people come to, expect all of them to be very, very intense.

The good

• Going into this game blind is probably for the best, thanks to some incredibly memorable moments
• Haunting visual aesthetic boosted by best-in-class lighting and particle effects
• Impressive sound design sells the game's sense of terror and mystery

The bad

• Like Limbo, don't expect a lot of clever puzzles—and a few of them really drag the game's pace

The ugly

• Quite a short game, though if it were longer, the worst puzzles would probably be stretched even more thinly

Bottom line: Puzzle-platformer fans, lovers of Limbo, and unapologetic followers of the games-as-art movement shouldn't hesitate to buy. Even if you're unsure, don't blow the game's best moments by Twitching them.

Listing image by Playdead