Labyrinthine – Game review

Labyrinthine is an online co-op horror experience that takes place in a maze filled with monsters of different kinds. The game is still in Early Access at the moment but shows a lot of promise.

Feel free to check out the first part of the game in the video below.

Storyline

We, either as a group of friends or a sole brave adventurer, enter a maze that was planned to be an innocent and thrilling entertainment, to find out the reason why it’s never been open. Some say that the land is cursed, others that it was a crazy project of the previous owner who suddenly disappeared one day to be never seen again. This maze, of course, turns out much more dangerous than one would expect!

Gameplay

Labyrinthine Review

The labyrinth consists of several unique areas (some of which are pretty open-world-ish). Each of these areas has puzzles, monsters, and a story to unravel. The deeper you go into the maze, the scarier it gets! As a player, you have a flashlight, a lantern, a compass, an infinite amount of glowsticks, and a survival guide that you can’t read. Using all of these things one must solve puzzles simultaneously evading monsters that behave differently in each location. Can you reach the exit?

Positives

1. The game is scary to play alone and fun (and still scary) to play with friends. Labyrinth has some good jumpscares, tense ambiance, smart and unique monsters that behave differently from each other, and an endless claustrophobia-inducing labyrinth. Also, one should be warned that the game has some depictions of gore and other horror elements that may disturb or frighten some users.

2. It’s a very cool co-op experience. Each player has something to do. Players can separate and explore the different parts of the same maze on their own sharing the same experience but having a unique playthrough. They can also occasionally stumble upon each other giving themselves a good spook. Or sometimes they may stumble upon monsters thinking it’s a player – you can’t see far in the dark labyrinth, oopsies happen!

3. The tasks that you need to do to proceed to the next area are fun! They are not repetitive and are designed to be enjoyed playing either solo or with friends. Sometimes a player has to think and find solutions to puzzles, sometimes to run away from monsters from one safe zone to another and explore huge areas of scary and peculiar things.

4. The game has a very good ambiance and pacing. I especially enjoy the work with lights. I think the most heebie-jeebies I had was when I got lost in the maze then finally found my trail of glowsticks and saw an unfriendly shadow heading straight at me because they were also following my glowstick trail. The game starts light but spirals down the creepy kind of rabbit hole pretty fast. Some of the jumpscares are impeccably paced and prepared.

Negatives

1. Sometimes it feels like it’s too much wandering about and too little action. You stumble upon monsters rarely. Yet, this makes hearing breathing behind you surprisingly more terrifying!

2. Right now the voice chat doesn’t really work. The game is still in Early Access, though so that is expected to be fixed. Yet, at the moment, it’s pretty uncomfortable to play with random people.

3. Some puzzles are just annoying and take lots of time to solve. That ruins the sense of tension a bit as you just stay in the same place trying different combinations over and over again. The sad part is that some of the puzzles are intended to be that way – to make a person brute force it open.

4. There is no comprehensive lore for now (Early Access game). I mean, so many questions are unanswered (maybe they would be at the end or in the finished version of the game). These questions are: Who resets the puzzles? There was a person who came through before us, so they solved everything and now everything is unsolved again. Suspicious. How come they managed to survive?

Why did they write down every thought they had on a piece of paper? It’s dark and scary and yet they dedicated a huge amount of time to write their thoughts and record voice messages and place them all over the place. Suspicious…

Rating

I think this is fascinating! It’s cool to play together and solo – whatever you prefer! So, if you are afraid that the game is not going to be as fun playing alone, don’t worry, it’s going to be much scarier instead! As for now, I rate this experience 7 dead-ends out of 10! It’s cool as-is but it’s even more promising as early access for a full game.

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