Reviews
‘Nether’ Review: Waste of a Wasteland
Written by T. Blake Braddy, @blakebraddy
I’ve always joked that I would love to play an apocalypse game centered wholly around scavenging. It was my pleasure, for example, to wander the fields of Red Dead Redemption and pick flowers or shoot buffalo to collect their hides. I happily foraged for supplies in The Last of Us and sought out every last nook and cranny of Far Cry 3 and the BioShock games.
So I should be happy with Nether, right? It’s a horror-themed survival MMO. Think Day Z mixed with FallOut 3 without the zombies. As a survivor, you battle with people and Half-Life-esque alien creatures in a dilapidated, grimy wasteland. This place makes Ravenholm seem like a sunny, bustling metropolis.
The fact that I came away feeling sort of ambivalent has more to do with the game’s stage-of-development than the actual gaming experience. As a whole, it has some problems. Severe, game-breaking bugs and a lack of mission types and public instances hamper a game that could be really quite interesting. Like plenty of PC titles (and I guess console games, at this point), Nether was released without being entirely done, so you might have to take a wait-and-see approach to playing it. With some continued development and support, it could be a viable PVP roguelike MMO. At present, though, it’s kind of underwhelming.
Nether revolves around a giant solar flare that wiped out society nine years ago, save for the few remaining people left to pick over what’s left of supplies and weapons. Players fight the Nether – evolved (infected) humans that look like headcrab zombies from Half-Life – but mostly they just struggle to survive. Die and, well, all weapons and supplies are lost, along with a chunk of earned money. In that way it’s close to a roguelike, which is kind of a fantastic idea. Leveling up through combat and looting means so much when the consequences are dire, so it would seem to make trekking through the wasteland more immediate and harrowing.
As you acquire skill points, you can apply them to a variety of standard character traits, like Stealth, Melee, and Survival, but because the world is so chaotic and unforgiving, you’ll likely end up dying in one way or another before you hit max level. Other humans are far more dangerous than their mutated AI counterparts, and on more than one occasion I stumbled onto someone who plugged me before I managed to reach a high level. It can be super frustrating, but if you buy into the world, it’s not that big a deal.
The problem is that there’s not much to do in Nether. Items are few and far between – an element that is expected – and combat can best be described as “occasional.” It wouldn’t be so bad if there were a variety of mission types to keep you busy during lulls between the exciting bits, kind of like being a cop in a small town. However, as a player, you’ll spend much more time wandering around, looking for glowing trash bins and soda machines than you will doing anything of significance.
They’ve begun to add the option to play as members of the Nether, which is a nice touch, but still the game feels woefully underpopulated. For veteran players, there’s plenty to do, but for novices and beginners, it’s darkness, emptiness, and – likely – death. I don’t know that most people would put enough time into Nether to be able to see the fruits of their labor manifest.
Not to mention the fact that the combat can be frustrating and imprecise, which reinforces the idea that avoidance is a key component of traversing the world of Nether. I’ve not found a weapon I feel comfortable wielding or firing – though the shotgun comes close – but the crafting system allows for players to build weapons that fit whatever play-style with which you’re most comfortable.
Combat isn’t generally what is good here, though. The real fun and fear come from avoiding other players. In the hours I’ve put into the game, no single computer-generated enemy has elicited even a fraction of the fear that someone dressed in military garb does. Hearing the crack of a rifle and glancing around frantically is way more heart-stopping than, say, happening upon a gaggle of monsters. In that way, the “evolved” Nethers are merely a backdrop for the PVP struggle, and if there aren’t very many people online or you don’t happen upon them during play, the game can be quite anticlimactic.
The widespread problem with servers has also plagued Nether’s release. Until that gets updated and fixed, many people might have trouble finding their way onto a stable server. I’ve only had minor problems with getting into a game, but I have experienced several game-crashing bugs. None have been permanent, but they are also predictable. Once I tried to exit but got hung up in-world and had to end the game via Task Manager. Another time I spawned in as a HUD-less floating character with no agency, though it was neat to fly around the world sans combat. For a game that is contingent upon the danger of the immediate experience, enduring game-ending glitches definitely hurts playability, since you might also have trouble getting back into a game.
However, I haven’t grown bored with wandering around, hunting for loot and hiding from the Nether. Survival bonuses help with leveling up quickly, and the game is pretty generous with XP, so even though everything disappears upon dying it doesn’t ruin the game. I died with a Level 7 character and was back to Level 3 in another fifteen minutes, and that was with fighting off only a handful of Nether.
The game couldn’t require a ton of grinding and still be viable, but also there just isn’t that much to grind out. My strategy revolves around mere survival, so the price of that is avoiding huge encounters. The benefit of playing a game where quest progression is not necessary means that you can sandbox the world in a way that interests you. If you’re not having fun tracking down the Nether or other players, then you can do something else entirely.
Consequently, players have decided to make their own fun in the game, not entirely unlike Day Z or S.T.A.L.K.E.R., and I would be remiss not to mention those games as passing analogues in terms of expectations. However, Nether is far smaller in size, scope, and complexity. Even in terms of itself, the game falls below expectations and yet could benefit from continuous updates and development, a criticism I feel I could copy and paste throughout the review to reiterate its validity.
All issues aside, Nether is not an inherently bad game; it just feels incomplete, which makes it a difficult game to review. It is changing even as I type this, so who really knows what it will look or play like in a month.
If the community continues to flood in – the servers seem to be broken due to an abundance of players – then popularity will drive the game’s development and evolution. If, however, the game doesn’t fill its world with enough content, or else the devs cannot keep up with the community’s demand for content, then it may wither on the vine. Despite its problems, I still kind of recommend Nether, if only to wander around and try to avoid dying for a few hours.
Again, I’m a sucker for traipsing through vast worlds and picking items from garbage cans, so even without combat this game would do something for me.
The Final Word: At full price, it’s a dubious buy, but discounted on Steam Nether seems to be worth it, if you’re interested in peeking around under the hood for a little while. Otherwise, keep an eye on the community and maybe pick up the game when it is more stable.
Reviews
‘Cape Fear’ Redefines A Cutthroat Classic & Turns The American Dream Into A Psychological Nightmare [Review]
Hollywood has been stuck in a trend where a recognizable property — any recognizable property — holds more value than an original idea. This has led to a trend where a slew of acclaimed films have transitioned over to television and become limited series, because why not?
Which has led to a very mixed bag of results that’s usually viewed as a hollow exercise in IP renewal that’s become a growing cliche that’s something to mock. Dead Ringers, Fatal Attraction, Presumed Innocent, and even The Birds are just some of the most recent titles in the movie-to-limited series pipeline. Admittedly, this formula can still work. It just needs to actually have not only a point of view, but a point, otherwise it’s destined to disappear into the vast streaming abyss.
Cape Fear definitely has a point of view and is well aware that it’s the fourth proper adaptation of this story — fifth if The Simpsons’ masterful “Cape Feare” parody is included. It’s an adaptation that’s not only aware of its past’s baggage, but intentionally embraces it and uses it to its advantage. Nick Antosca’s Cape Fear is so exciting because it functions as a remix of every version of this story — the ’60s film, Martin Scorsese’s ’90s remake, and John D. MacDonald’s original novel, The Executioners — to create this glorious amalgamation of the narrative. It’s not unlike what was done with Bryan Fuller’s Hannibal series and how it remixed the breadth of Thomas Harris’ works and their cinematic adaptations.
This approach is most effective when certain iconic scenes from the ’90s film are recontextualized and given to different characters in order to make grander thematic statements. It’s a really striking approach that reflects the generational ripples and overlap between these adaptations, yet it’s never distracting or ostentatious to anyone who is experiencing this story for the first time. It helps this series feel different from the deluge of forgettable adaptations that are flooding the market.
On paper, Antosca is the perfect showrunner to tell this story. He has an impressive body of work to pull from that includes horror series like Channel Zero, Hannibal, and Brand New Cherry Flavor, but also lots of true-crime titles like The Act, A Friend of the Family, and Candy. This series falls squarely within these two extremes as it blurs the lines between these genres and styles of horror storytelling. It’s Big Little Lies on bath salts. Cape Fear perhaps doesn’t need to exist, but it’s still a hell of a terrifying experience that has something timely to say.
Horror is full of stories in which one bad day is all it takes to break someone and turn them into a completely different person. Cape Fear isn’t doing exactly this. It’s more of a psychological waterboarding until the target’s sense of self is eroded to rubble. However, it takes the kernel of this idea and expands it onto the pristine ideal of the picturesque American family. It plays with the self-aware realization that the stories we tell are not necessarily what we think they are.
It’s a story about forgiveness, salvation, and revenge that blows up the Bowden family when a violent offender, Max Cady (Javier Bardem), is released from prison and systematically sets his sights on the people he holds accountable. Anna and Tom Bowden (Amy Adams and Patrick Wilson), the married couple who represented his case in court, receive a rude awakening when Cady’s psychological torture tour begins. Cape Fear, as a property, is most famously known for being the ultimate cat-and-mouse psychological thriller. This rendition culminates in such an explosive climax that’s right out of a slasher film.
Antosca was involved with an unproduced Friday the 13th reboot draft back in 2015, and there are certainly moments in which Max Cady moves with the hulking intensity of Jason Voorhees. So much of what makes all this work rests on Bardem’s complex performance. He’s very careful not to just copy Robert Mitchum or Robert De Niro’s versions of Cady, while he also taps into a terrifying intensity that feels completely different from what he brought forward with No Country for Old Men’s Anton Chigurh.
Apple TV’s new series also introduces a mental injury to Cady that adds psychological fractures that pull him between different versions of events as he struggles to grasp the truth. It’s an element that’s not exactly necessary and often feels like a convenient obstacle that can be activated whenever necessary. However, it allows for some creative visual flourishes and more opportunities for Bardem to get lost in Cady’s complexities.
Opposite Bardem’s Cady, Adams and Wilson do some of their best work as Anna and Tom. Anna is much more front and center than Tom, and Cape Fear is really Adams and Bardem’s time to shine. Wilson still does amazing, understated work, especially whenever the rug gets pulled out from under him regarding someone in his family. The visceral, brutal violence that Cady introduces to the Bowden family hits hard and highlights the anger and intensity that’s fundamental to this story.
What Cape Fear does best is its enlightening deconstruction of the ideal American family, how much work it takes to preserve such a pure thing, and the lengths that people go when they feel like the sanctity of this union is under fire. All it takes is for one of these foundational pillars to weaken before the whole unit becomes compromised. It moves the damage and pressure from one family member to the next as everyone struggles, and it’s unclear what will be left of this family when all is said and done.
This dynamic makes Cape Fear’s story so much more layered and interesting than if the series were just focused on Cady, Anna, and Tom, rather than making their children as much of a priority. Each member of the Bowden family experiences their own obstacles and arcs, although Natalie (Lily Collias) and Zack’s (Joe Anders) storylines are often the most grating. It all boils down to forgiveness, identity, and wanting to be perceived as the person we think we are, versus how we’re viewed by the public, and the dangerous dissonance that can exist between these separate selves.
These ideas are at their most potent when Cape Fear taps into the growing paranoia that bubbles up to the surface and becomes unbearable, so that even the littlest action is triggering. These moments are usually captured through a more erratic filming style that ramps up the tension for both the characters and the audience, unsure of what will strike and when.
Cape Fear never struggles to create uncomfortable setpieces where the anxiety just crescendos and hangs over the scene. On this note, the series’ musical score really captures the perfect aesthetic. It immediately evokes the suspenseful power of the previous Cape Fear films whenever Bernard Herrmann’s virtuosic original theme kicks in. It’s magic every single time.
Antosca delivers an exhilarating update to a classic thriller that pushes its source material to exciting, new places that justify its existence. It’s an exciting story that’s full of terrifying performances and cataclysmic consequences. Admittedly, Cape Fear could have been shortened to eight episodes rather than ten. There are a few plot threads that feel unnecessary and artificially expanded upon, but every episode is still an adrenaline-pumping experience.
If nothing else, it reminds audiences why Cape Fear is such an evergreen story that’s lasted the test of time and will continue to unnerve and get under the skin of whole new generations.
The 10-episode series will make its global debut on June 5 with a two-episode premiere on Apple TV, followed by new episodes every Friday through July 31, 2026.
You must be logged in to post a comment.