Everyone Wants To Make The Next Limbo – Kotaku

A few minutes into The Cub, a forthcoming 2D platformer from Demagog Studios, and it hit me like a train: Everyone wants to make the next Limbo or Inside.

Now, before anyone gets the wrong impression, Im not saying such platformers are derivative or uninspired. Far from it. If anything, its more a commentary on how Playdeads duology of seminal platformers2010s Limbo and its 2016 spiritual successor, Insidehave transcended touchstone classic game status. Theyve spawned a subgenre unto their own. Weve had Metroidvania since video games were little more than primordial strings of code. The term Soulslike has dominated gaming discourse for the past half decade. Id like to propose a new phrase for entry into the gaming shorthand canon: Limbolike.

Defining the Limbolike isnt an exact science, but theres a visual language that establishes commonality. It cant just be a side-scrolling platformer with environmental puzzles and a confident, striking art style; thats way too broad a definition. The Limbolike has to be moody and atmospheric. It has to involve some sort of eerie desolation or weird AF science, or both. It has to cast you as a tenacious loner who doesnt speak. (Bonus points if you play as a child.) But above all, the Limbolike must convey a sense that you dont know what the hell is going onat least not for sure. Youll have to come up with your own thematic interpretations.

We are, as of late, awash in such games.

Take Silt, a puzzle-platformer from freshman indie studio Spiral Circus out this month for consoles, Switch, and PC. It certainly has the visuals to match, with everything done up in a deliciously textured grayscale. You play as a deep-sea diver exploring derelict science facilities. The gimmick is that you can transfer your consciousness into various creatures of the sealanternfish, hammerhead sharks, and so onusing their innate abilities to bypass obstacles. Im several chapters in and do not have a fucking clue whats going on. Thats a Limbolike!

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Theres also this years placid, serene Far: Changing Tides, from Okomotive. Though it doesnt have the grayscale visuals of Silt, it unequivocally nails the Limbolike tone. There are light platforming elements, and you occasionally have to solve a rudimentary puzzle to progress past, say, a seagate. But the key to its Limbolike-ness is that youre alone. Youre navigating a world left behind. And you have no clue how, or why, youre by yourself.

The past few years, of course, have been rife with similarly moody side-scrollers. Some, while terrific, dont quite clear the Limbolike bar: Ori and the Will of the Wisps. (Too action-focused, too explicit in its themes.) Carrion. (Sorry, the power fantasy disqualifies it.) Metroid Dread. (Yeahhhh, I think that fits into a different platforming subgenre.)

This morning, at the Tribeca Festival, I spent 20 minutes hands-on with The Cub. Based on what I playedwith the essential caveat that its still in development, and this impression could change upon its full releaseIm inclined to say that clears the bar.

Planet of Lana.Screenshot: Wishfully

Youre a child. The demo I played started me off on a futuristic version of Earth, demolished and abandoned by humans whove decamped the planet to establish a colony on Mars. (The Cub is set in the same fictional universe as Demagogs capitalism satire, Golf Club: Wasteland.) With no humans around, the child is literally raised by wolves. All the while, soldiers affiliated with some sort of nefarious-seeming scientific organization try to stop you for reasons that eluded me. The goal, at least stipulated in the demo I played, is to keep moving toward the right side of the screen, which you accomplish by jumping, dashing, clambering ledges, and occasionally swinging on vines.

Prior to the start of the game, the child you play as finds an astronauts helmet, which is set to a radio station from Mars. Not only does this offer the child their first experience of other humans, but it also offers a(very minimalist) excuse for a killer OST. The whole game, to my understanding, features a mixture of indie-rock earworms and esoteric dispatches from the now-Martians. (One neat touch: When you go into a cave, the radio turns to static. You cant get a signal.) The Cub is further full of inexplicable oddities: neon blue giraffes and globules of volatile violet goo, plus that whole soldiers shooting weapons at a child thing. But in spots, its a touch on the nose. At one point, you see a light-up roadside sign with much of its text turned off. The only letters still on? R-U-I-N.

The Limbolike isnt just defined by whats out now but rather whats on the horizon. Planet of Lana, developed by Wishfully and expected to release this year, casts you as a child on an exoplanet. Early footage indicates extremely Limbo vibes. Somerville, from UK-based developer Jumpship, casts you as an adult, accompanied by a dog, trying to survive on a planet beset by gigantic extraterrestrials. Early footage there also gives off extremely Limbo vibes (A roadmap published by Xbox yesterday indicates Somerville is on track for a 2022 release, but theres no release date set in stone.)

The Limbolike might not even need to be a side-scroller. During yesterdays big Xbox showcase, publisher Annapurna Interactive unveiled Cocoon. Developed by the lead gameplay designer on Inside and Limbo, you cant miss how it carries the DNA of those two games, despite its top-down perspective. Theres some weird shit going on, too: You carry worlds within worlds that exist in Pokball-sized orbs. Huh.

Given the lengthy and often arduous timelines of game development, it takes a while, but there comes a point where you see a landmark games influence start to spawn enough obvious comparisons that you cant ignore it. Weve hit it for FromSofts punishing action-games. Weve definitely hit it for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, with even the typically brash Sonic the Hedgehog going the route of a somber, melancholic open world. Six years removed from the release of Inside, I feel confident in declaring that weve reached its saturation point, too. Bring on the Limbolikes.

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Everyone Wants To Make The Next Limbo - Kotaku