Finish of Abyss is when Metroidvania meets house horror

You’d assume that the newest sport from the studio that made Little Nightmares 2 goes to be a bit spooky and darkish, and Part 9’s Finish of Abyss is that. Nonetheless, it is also a little bit simpler to explain and clarify: an atmospheric sci-fi shooter with Metroidvania-style exploration.

Whereas there isn’t any scarcity of Metroidvanias to attract inspiration from, once I performed a demo at SGF 2025, all I might consider was Alien. It could be the scanner, which the protagonist can use to glean data, spot hidden objects and tag room particulars for additional exploration when you’ve obtained new expertise or weapons. Mattias Ottvall, co-creator of the sport, praised my tendency to scan every little thing, which netted me a number of secret merchandise caches throughout my demo playthrough.

You’ll need to tag between the scanner and your gun fairly typically, too, as biped monsters, spidery little parasites and beefier foes swing their literal heads at you. Fortuitously, Finish of Abyss’ isometric structure is paired with the flexibility to maneuver and shoot with every analog stick. If issues get a little bit too dicey, your character additionally has a really forgiving dive roll.

After some early teething points (scanning an alien zombie as an alternative of taking pictures it down), the management setup finally grew to become second nature, and I used to be tumbling out of the way in which of an alien golem boss, firing shotgun rounds into its flank. The shotgun, sadly, has finite ammo (which you’ll each craft and discover on the planet), so I resorted to chipping away with my pistol at a distance.

The temporary demo (and teaser trailer) recommend a darkish and shady environment just like the studio’s earlier video games. Naturally, there’s the occasional scare as you discover this rundown facility.

In case you do get overwhelmed, the character will get respawned again into the world — as do the monsters — however any doorways unlocked and expertise gained are saved. Even higher, with a sport that facilities on exploration, while you come throughout one thing you could’t but work together with (for instance, a weakened wall that may very well be demolished or a safety door that requires a key), scanning it in-game will ‘tag’ the function on the menu map, making it simpler to circle again after getting what you might want to progress. In the course of the demo, I unlocked explosives for tackling the weakened partitions that had been tagged, however I additionally noticed grapple hook fixtures, presumably for a later level within the sport.

The tagging is a pleasant contact for anybody who struggles to maintain observe of their path in sprawling Metroidvania video games, though that is contingent on how expansive Into the Abyss seems to be. The unique Little Nightmares turned out to be a brief, however candy escape – how deep will the abyss go?

Into the Abyss is coming to PS5, Xbox Sequence X|S and PC.