Previews
Sci-Fi Shooter ‘The Anacrusis’ Takes Co-Op Horde Blasting to the Stars [Early Access Impressions]
With so many co-op monster shooters arriving in recent times, The Anacrusis already has a job in standing out, but it’s already laying some impressive groundwork for the future as it begins life in Early Access. Will it end up being a Big Bang or a Black Hole?
Unlike many of its genre pals, The Anacrusis shuns the Left 4 Dead infected Earth apocalypse route in favor of a funky retro sci-fi vibe where crazed aliens are the new horde and a space station (the titular Anacrusis) is the place to not be. A team of four beams aboard a starship stranded on the edge of space and finds all manner of nastiness has occurred. They must work together to fight their way through the Anacrusis and find out exactly why the local population is so vicious and in some cases, horribly mutated.
Developer Stray Bombay is another that features talent from that golden Left 4 Dead team (Back 4 Blood’s Turtle Rock being the other notable example), and as such is out to try and evolve the formula in its own way. It certainly gets off on a good foot with its setting amongst the stars and 60s-inspired decor. On the surface, it’s like Shatner-era Star Trek as a co-op horde shooter, and that alone baited my curiosity. Perhaps that is a little sterile for some, but it’s not like there aren’t multiple other options out there.
What matters most, of course, is how The Anacrusis plays. So far, every game that’s tried to emulate the Left 4 Dead formula has got something wrong in trying to get something right. Sometimes it’s the open storytelling, others it’s a poor (or lack of) implementation of the in-game ‘director’ to give players the appropriate shifts and changes in action with every playthrough, and the worst offenders tend to just be unsatisfying in action.
At present, I don’t think The Anacrusis necessarily ‘fails’ in any category on the old Left 4 Dead co-op shooter checklist, but it doesn’t exactly have many standout strengths. The A.I. Driver is certainly more present here than in other attempts though. The game is eager to understand how you and your squad are getting on and provide you with the requisite challenge. It promises a constantly adapting framework that takes more into consideration than just how good someone is at shooting a gun into account. While it needs a little fine-tuning, it delivers on that promise pretty well. After retrying the opening section multiple times, enemy encounters cropped up at very different times and situations, always keeping me on my toes.
Combat encounters are what you’d expect. A rushing, individually weak horde that occasionally bursts forth in large numbers alongside various ‘special’ beasts, and all that can stop them is your modest arsenal of space-age guns. While clearly still a work in progress, this combat is lacking a bit of weight and impact, which makes the over-the-top ragdolling of the enemies upon death feel quite jarring. It’s a fixable problem, but at present, it serves to undermine the intensity of some encounters.
The enemy design and movement also contribute to that. Not so much in the bigger enemies, which bring something a little spicier to the table. The Flasher, for instance, stands out not so much for its look, but for the blinding illumination it gives off when it arrives, as not only does it prevent the player from getting a good idea of what’s going on, it seems to send the grunts into a frenzy.
The grunts are the main offender in terms of poor look and movement. They come at the player in somewhat stiff and under animated fashion, and whether it’s intentional or not, they have all the menace of extras in rubber masks. I don’t think this is a huge problem, nor is it one I think will remain as it is now. It is something that adds to the very obvious feeling of a game still in development.
The foundations are there for The Anacrusis to grow into a really good co-op shooter. Even in its current fledgling state, there are several multi-stage missions to tackle, and an A.I. director that makes them at least a little bit fresh each playthrough. Unfortunately, while the setting is visually striking, there’s currently not much in the way of storytelling depth to the game world, which means beyond that director’s shenanigans, there’s little reason to revisit each stage too often.
Set expectations accordingly, and there’s plenty to appreciate in The Anacrusis, but you may want to wait for later in development to see the full vision.
The Anacrusis Early Access code for PC provided by the publisher.
The Anacrusis is out now in Early Access on Steam, and on Xbox Game Pass in Game Preview.
The gaming world owes so much to David Lynch. “Twin Peaks” alone has inspired the premise and setting of so many games, from Deadly Premonition to Alan Wake, and its dreamlike tone is one that’s perfect for an interactive medium.
Silver Pines, the upcoming title from Swedish-based indie developer Wych Elm, is the latest in the lineage of Lynchian games, this time presenting survival-horror-style gameplay from a 2D perspective. While I’m not traditionally as hot on 2D games, after spending time with the demo, available now on Steam, I can’t wait to see more of this intriguing new world.
It starts out simple. After a brief, narrated dream sequence, you wake up in an empty diner in the small American town of Silver Pines. There’s a quick tutorial sequence that teaches you the game’s mechanics as you escape from the diner, followed by a phone call that sets up the premise of the game. You play Red Walker, a private investigator on the hunt for a missing musician named Eddie Velvet. It’s an elegant bit of exposition that’s delivered with a slightly dreamlike vibe, setting the tone for what’s to come.
As you begin to explore the titular town, you find it eerily abandoned, thanks to an evacuation order that’s caused the majority of the residents to take the ferry out of here. Empty streets and vacant buildings bring to mind Silent Hill, which is a great start in my book. There’s something really unique and special about small town horror like this, and Silver Pines is able to capture it immediately without feeling too much like a tribute act.
Navigating the Unique 2D World of Silver Pines
One of the things that impressed me immediately was how easy I found it to navigate the 2D space. Much like the indie classic Lone Survivor, you have a map that represents the space, and you turn down streets and hallways by pressing up or down at certain openings in the background to “turn” on the map. It seems like it should be incredibly difficult to follow directional shifts like this, but it becomes immediately intuitive, especially with the addition of diegetic signage that guides you without feeling out of place and handholdy.
I usually associate 2D games with more dynamic jumping and movement mechanics, but Silver Pines keeps things grounded, managing to find ways of creating navigation challenges without resorting to platforming tests that would feel out of place in a narrative like this. The map is particularly excellent in this game, as you can use a camera to add photos to it to help remind you what’s there. I love it when main characters mark up maps with locations of puzzles or items, and putting that power in the player’s hands was an interesting mechanical wrinkle that felt helpful and unique.
The other thing that gripped me from the start was the art style, which uses a slight cel-shading technique for the character models that makes them look hand-drawn. They really pop when compared to the backgrounds, which have a slightly different, but complementary, style to them. Wych Elm also shows off a masterful understanding of lighting, creating a shadowy look that’s never too dark to understand what’s going on.
The way the various layers of background and foreground give a parallax effect as you walk adds so much depth to every moment, making the imagery feel more dynamic. This game is treading familiar ground, with abandoned hotels and empty small town streets, but the unique look sets it apart enough to justify it among its peers.
Puzzles Balance Logic and Surrealism
Aside from just navigating the spaces, you’ll need to solve a variety of puzzles in order to progress. Many of them are just finding keys to open doors or figuring out which item is helpful in which situation, like an adventure game, but there were a few in the hour-long demo that gave me a level of satisfaction in actually figuring something out. Like the best survival horror games, the puzzles are an equal bit grounded in reality and slightly surreal, adding to the tone of the game. One of them gave me a Silent Hill vibe with its logic, asking me to win a BB gun shooting range mini game to get a pool key (which also teaches you how to use weapons).
While the game isn’t crawling with enemies, there are more threats scattered throughout the levels than I expected. Early on, you get a blade to defend yourself, which also acts as a key to cut through doorways blocked by cloth, and it’s just the right balance of effective and clumsy. There’s a surprisingly useful dodge that lets you slip past enemies. With the right timing, it’s not too difficult to survive one-on-one encounters, but it’s also not so easy that you can go on autopilot. Once multiple enemies get into the mix, it starts feeling more desperate, forcing you to make smart use of your stamina and weapon durability to survive.
A pistol gets introduced late in the demo, and that also felt surprisingly punchy, but its power was balanced smartly by limited ammo. One of my favorite gameplay elements of survival horror is ammo management, and it seems like Silver Pines is going to make that a core part of its combat experience, asking you to think carefully about which enemies are worth your precious bullets. This is further complicated by the fact that your gun can also be used to shoot padlocks to access previously locked areas, making it an even more valuable resource.
Enemy Design is the Demo’s Biggest Question Mark
Ammo and tape will be crucial to the continued use of your gun and knife, respectively, and there’s a quick little minigame for reloading and repairing that adds some tension to encounters. In addition to scavenging for resources, there was a vending machine I ran across where I could spend money to buy ammo or health kits. Be careful, though, the money is what you use to save at the payphone save points, so you don’t want to spend it all. It’s a clever variant on the classic Resident Evil-style ink ribbon system that makes your resource for saving a more abundant currency, but one that is used for more than just saving.
There were a couple of mementos that I ran across while exploring, and these can be equipped to provide specific character modifiers. I’m not entirely sold on the system yet, as there weren’t enough in the demo to really be able to craft a meaningful build, but with the surprisingly fun combat I’ve seen so far, I’m hoping that they will allow you to shape your playstyle in a way that’s tuned to how you like it. Any new wrinkles on combat are welcome, as it will need to find ways to keep fresh if it wants to stay compelling throughout.
As much as I think the combat is responsive and interesting, I think the enemies might be the weakest part of the game’s identity. This could also be a symptom of just seeing the early game, but so far, they are a bit more indistinct than I’d like, consisting mostly of shadowy people and bugs that didn’t have much going on. There was a boss fight that had a bit more of a menacing design, but I don’t know enough about the full shape of the narrative yet to see if the enemy design is in sync with the tone it’s trying to achieve. Right now, they just feel a bit generic, but I’m hoping things improve as it goes on, because they are pretty fun to fight for a survival horror game.
A Strong First Impression
Back to the opening thoughts about Lynch, the part that has me most interested in this game is the narrative. It’s simple so far, but there have been some surprisingly effective surrealist sequences that make me think this story is going to be something that will sink its hooks into me. One of the coolest moments of the demo involved turning off a light switch and being transported into an entirely different space, one dripping with dreamlike vibes. Even the choice to have the person you’re searching for be a musician adds a nice bit of texture to the narrative, putting a thematic focus on the game’s music in an important sequence involving a performance.
The cutscenes shift to a distinct painterly style, making them stand out without having to animate them, and it’s all brought to life with great voice acting. There’s even a little show you can watch in bits on TVs you pass, feeling a bit like a nod to Alan Wake II’s “Night Springs”.
I’m going to be honest, watching the initial trailer for Silver Pines had me feeling a bit sceptical. Not everyone can nail that Lynchian vibe, and when you try for that tone and miss, it can leave you with a narrative that’s either confusing or pretentious. Based on my hour with Silver Pines, I’d say they are on the right track, ready to deliver a surrealist narrative that draws from its inspirations while still carving out its own identity.
No word on the release date yet, outside of a vague 2026 timeframe, but I’ll be there day one to check it out.
Silver Pines is scheduled to release on the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, Nintendo Switch, and PC via Steam.
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